Brit3964

You hit the nail on head. Arresting and taking you to the cop-shop does seem over-excessive. The reason of course is that in AL you are assumed to be illegal if you can't produce acceptable ID and this new law says you must be arrested. This isn't the first embarrassing arrest in AL. Mohamed Ali Muflahi was arrested and it later turned out he was in fact a legal immigrant:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1..._n_996101.html

That's the worrying part of this law...it hits all immigrants and even USC's. It is an ill-conceived law at best. You could hardly say AL is a welcoming State for new legal immigrants or businesses who might be considering moving to AL. A PR nightmare.

However some illegal immigrants arrested under this law might end up with the last laugh if they qualify for Cancellation of Removal. In that case, AL might be doing them a favor.

Scouse Express

Looks like the offer has just arrived for Mercedes;

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/23...des/?hpt=hp_t3


Jim.

Steerpike

In case anyone wants to read more about it, it's "Russell Pearce"

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...l-climate.html

We live in hope ...

tinman0

Erm, isn't the flip side of this that immigrants are required to be carrying their Green Card at all times anyway?

So all Alabama is doing is enforcing a law that already exists?

Steerpike

Persons holding a green card are required to carry it at all times (though I never, ever carried mine in 25 years or so as a GC holder before becoming a citizen, and was stopped numerous times by police for speeding/etc, never had an issue). But there are visitors on tourist or business visas (like the subjects of this article, I presume) who are not, I don't think, required to carry their documents at all times (I always lock up my passport/etc at the hotel, I don't go wandering the streets with it).

But my question is, what is the law as it relates to driving without a driver's license and proof of insurance? I'm talking about the long-standing laws that apply to regular old citizens ...

md95065

I think that it has been pretty well established in several court cases that the police (assuming that they have stopped you for some legitimate reason) are allowed to detain you until they can establish your identity and, of course, if you don't have some form of identification such as a driver's license this could take a while ...

Brit3964

Ultimately if AZ and AL get their way in the SCOTUS next year, it could mean that ALL persons in those states including USC's may effectively have to carry proof of Citizenship unless they don't mind being detained. I'm pretty sure that won't go down well at all with many Americans. Federal Law as it stand does not require proof of Citizenship except for entering the country of course. After a few USC detainee occurrences, I see many ACLU lawsuits on the way setting up another battle between States Rights vs Federal Government.

mikelincs

When I was living in Spain you had to have all your documents with you if you were driving, specifically DL, Insurance and log book, failure to have any of those was an offense punishable by impounding the car, you would then have to make your own way home, and back to the police station with all documents. Just before I left in 2009 most police cars were computer equiped so they could check the details, they only needed the log book, however some were still insisting on all documents. This was the same no matter what nationality you were.