Article: DU: NO WATER OR POWER FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
http://decaturdaily.com/stories/DU-No-water-or-power-for-illegal-immigrants,87348
Topic: Alabama Immigration Law
Historical Significance:
-14th Amendment passed in 1868: protects all born citizens in the United States- however by taking these rights away from the children that are born here and living with their illegal immigrant parents, they are not being protected.
-Immigration is a federal policy and it is being taken under the states belt-unconstitutional?
Decatur Utilities is a service providing over 30,000 people in the Decatur, Alabama area with water and power. It is run by the city of Decatur. As of Sunday 11/6/11, Decatur Utilities prohibited illegal immigrants from having access to electricity, gas, water or sewer service. Prior to this, residents who were obtaining services from the DU were required to provide identification and their immigration status was irrelevant at the time. Because of the new immigration law in Alabama, DU officials are now going through all of their client’s immigration status to ensure they are only providing services to those who are legal and documented. The US Department of Justice claimed that denying illegal immigrant’s service is valid under section 30 of the law, so this justified what the DU is doing as constitutional. Section 30 declares “it a felony for illegal immigrants to transact business with the state of subdivisions.” State Attorney General Luther Strange argues that this utility is not qualified as a subdivision. Stephen Pirkle the business manager and chief financial officer of DU stated that this has been imposed in the past few weeks but hasn’t begun to take away privileges of those who are illegal. Pirkle also explained how any person already receiving services will not be shut off and that this is only applying to the new people applying for services and turn out to be illegal. “Section 30 of the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act requires the state and its political subdivisions to confirm that individuals conducting “business transactions” — which the law defines to mean “any transaction” — are legally present in the United States.” By denying new illegal citizens they are simply following the law. State Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, the House sponsor of the law, applauded DU for taking the step. “Our goal was to prevent any business transactions with any governments. It’s just an extension of the goal of the entire bill — to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to Alabama and to discourage those that are here from putting down roots,” Hammon said. People favoring the DU’s decision to deny water and power to illegal immigrants they hope that this will fear people to come to Alabama illegally and if they are already here to self-deport. A conspiracy Clause was also added in which is convicting a person with a felony is they are to help an illegal immigrant seek service without being documented. Federal District judge Sharon Blackburn “concluded that Section 30 applied to commercial contracts and licenses at the very least,” in a September decision blocking enforcement of some portions of the law, and she hadn’t mentioned weather section 3 applied to utilities. Barney Lovelace a Decatur lawyer later confirmed that their utilities required documentation. The article also described how Huntsville Utilities in Huntsville Alabama set the same policy Decatur did.
Fear of this policy described how health ramifications would eventually impact the children, who in the majority of the time are US citizens; of the immigrants because they are not getting the appropriate services they need to stay healthy. This was defined as a policy “to make like more difficult by destroying households and families, and that’s just what it is doing.
Probing Question: Do you agree with what Decatur Utilities is prompting to do? Do you think the utilities that the DU provides are fundamental rights that should be protected by the fourteenth amendment and therefore granted to all U.S. residents?
I do agree with what Decatur utilities is prompting to do. I don't believe it is entirely ethical but because illegal immigration is such a large problem in Alabama it may be necessary. We have learned that there are Native American Reservations that do not have running water, gas, or electricity and they should get it before these illegal immigrants. I believe that the utilities the DU provides are fundamental rights that should be protected by the fourteenth amendment and that all citizens should have access to water, gas, electricity etc but that this would be very costly to arrange. Furthermore, I believe that it may not be ethical for Alabama to enact this law but it certainly does send a message to the illegal immigrants. We should worry about citizens who are here legally rather then offering these utilities to illegal immigrants. Furthermore, it might help encourage legal citizenship since the parents would want their children to have access to essential resources to maintain their health. However, on the other hand; many of the immigrants that apply for citizenship get rejected due to the low amount of immigrants allowed in.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing. When thinking about trying to get illegal immigrants out of the country and trying to keep new ones from coming in, it is a decision that is a smart one but when truly looking at it it is an awful thing to be doing to the immigrants. No one deserves to not be given water or power, and even though they did come here illegally and technically do not have a right to these services, it is not right to do in modern day society. These elements are not fundamental rights, and it is entirely possible to live without them. But in today’s world it is almost impossible to live a decent functional life without them, especially in the United States. No one, not just illegal immigrants, should be denied these services. I think we become so caught up in how to fix these problems and improve how we can live that we forget that these are real human beings with real needs and issues instead of just statistics. We are fortunate enough to be born in this country, and nothing we did earned us this spot as an American citizen. No deed we did caused us to be born here, so we really don’t have a right to be taking these modern day necessities away from people who did nothing to earn their position. Many of them could have stayed in their own country yes, but there are some who are escaping war or are living in unsuitable conditions for any human being and felt they had to flee. Just because these people came here illegally does not mean they are not human beings who are trying to create a life, and even if they shouldn’t be here it is almost cruel not to provide these services to them in modern day United States, where it is almost impossible to live without them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing. At first this seemed very cruel and even pushing the limits, but like Randa said there are alot of Indian Reservations without power and water so why should these illegal immigrants get it. If there are U.S. citizens, not just residents that need water it should go to them and not to the illegal immigrants. Even though water is an essential resource that all humans need we shouldn't have to give it to them out of our own utilities. They can go out and buy water like what some citizens of the U.S. are already being forced to do. It might make their life more difficult, but it is not impossible to live under these conditions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing because I do not believe that a person should bot have US Constitution rights if they are not an American citizen. Also they have to if they want to follow the law as stated under section 30. This will dramatically decrease the illegal immigrants coming into this place and also start to push them out. Another point that was previously brought up by Randa and Troy was that in certain places in this country for example native american reservations people do not have running water. If we can allow them to go without water then why can't we with illegal immigrants.
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ReplyDeleteI also agree with Decatur Utilities. I think that these services should be only given to people who are living in the United States legally. I think that since undocumented immigrants are illegal and therefore not a part of our country, they'd should be restricted from use of our resources. I know it sounds immoral, but to crack down on these illegal immigrants and to get them out of our country, I think that what Decatur Utilities is doing is a step ahead in getting them out. Them denying the resources from the illegal immigrants will make them want to leave. That way our country would be pushing the illegal immigrants back out and make more people come in legally for the resources rather than illegally where they're restricted from them. My only question on the matter would be, how does Decatur Utilities know these people are illegal immigrants? If they don't know who's here illegally, then how does their strategy work? I also think that this is protected under the fourteenth amendment, United States citizens should have access to these resources and illegal immigrants are not citizens and therefore should not be granted the resources. The fourteenth amendment clearly states that US citizens should not be deprived of certain things, and illegal immigrants aren't citizens. And like Randa said, some Native American Reservations don't have power and they are here legally, but that doesn't make it right to give their share to people who don't live in the US illegally, and therefore, what Decatur Utilities is doing is right and I agree with it even if it isn't the moral thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI personally agree with Decatur Utilities. The public services that the company provides should legally be only given to legal American citizens. People that come to this country illegally choose to do so. By that, they give up basic freedom and rights that people who are legally here receive. Therefor, I do not think that this goes against the fourteenth amendment. However, i do feel that it is unfair to a point. Not based on a legal standing, people come here from all over the word for a chance at a better life. Some people choose the right way to come, while others do not take the time to come to the country the right way. But because they are choosing to come to this country for a better life, we should help them in that by giving them the services that most everyone else gets. We as a country will never be able to tell who is here legally and who isnt and who was born here and who wasnt, people will always be immigrating to out country, and we need to provide them with the basic needs to live normally. I am on the fence about this article, and agree and disagree with it in several ways.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing. They are not cutting off running water and power from current illegals, but from future ones cheating their way in. I understand that one of the reasons people are come here illegally is because of the limited number we let in and the qualifications needed to come in are high, so we need to increase the number and decrease the qualifications by a lot. This way we can fix the illegal immigration problem, by allowing them to get here legally. Giving the illegals power, water, drivers licences, jobs, education, etc. does not fix the problem, it promotes it. We need to deny them these rights and opportunities and open the door wider in legal immigration. Also, one might argue that opening the immigration door more and lowering the qualifications would be like letting in a bunch of poor, uneducated people who are worthless to are society. For those people who argue this, I would tell them that they are loosing hope. They need to look back at their history and the history of the entire country and realize that we were once a bunch of poor uneducated people, but look where we are now.
ReplyDeleteI do think the power and the running water are fundamental rights, rights of which everyone must have. They are rights of a U.S. citizen, but illegal immigrants aren't U.S. citizens, so they should not be granted these rights. They just need to come here legally so these rights can be obtained, which brings up my point again of letting more people in.
I agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing, they are lawfully allowed to cut utilities off from future illegal immigrants in the area, because of section thirty of the law. I do not think that this act violates the fourteenth amendment under the Due Process Clause or the Equal Protection Clause. Under the Due Process Clause which prohibits states from depriving people of life, liberty or property. Decatur Utilities is not depriving these people of any of these things. And the company is not breaching the Equal Protection clause, because the company is not racially segregating or discriminating based on sex. Though it could be argued they are racially segregating it would not be true, because illegal immigrants are not all from the same place, or of the same race. Running water, electricity and sewerage and gas are not fundamental rights guaranteed and protected under the fourteenth amendment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Decatur Utilities is doing. While the utilities are vital, the company is not taking them away or depriving them of anything. The people who are already recieveing their services are going to continue to recieve them. It is only going to deny new illegal immigrants to get them. This is just going to deter them from coming and they can just move to another place. It is the immigrants choice to go to Alabama and if they chose to go there, they know that these woulod be the conditions.
ReplyDeletei would have to agree with the Decatur Utilities as well. i completely agree with what Troy and Randa saying with the fact that Reservations do not have running water doesn't mean that illegal immigrants can. also they are going to continue with the service but they need to stop the illegal immigrants from coming in hope that they will slow down the amount of immigrants.
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