On Friday following President Barack Obama’s press conference, Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, attacked Alabama’s immigration law and said she hopes the U.S. House will heed the president’s calls for comprehensive immigration reform.
Sewell appeared on MSNBC’s “Martin Bashir” and accused her home state of denying citizenship to illegal immigrants while helping the economies of neighboring Georgia and Mississippi.
“I really hope that we can in the House get some sort of comprehensive immigration reform,” Sewell said. “I’m very doubtful we’ll have the kind of bill that came out of the senate which is unfortunate because I think we here in Alabama have seen what happens when a state takes upon itself to implement an atrocious immigration policy. You know, our state had HB56 in which the state of Alabama basically tried to destroy any hopes of folks getting, you know, citizenship in America.”
“And I just think it’s really unfortunate because what we were doing, the state of Alabama has no ability to export anybody or deport anybody,” she continued. “Instead they’re sending those same people to help the economy of Georgia and Mississippi and elsewhere. And so we have seen in Alabama alone the real effects of not having comprehensive immigration reform.”
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