AutoBanter - View Single Post - Alabama immigration law foes (La Raza) seek automakers' support

**walt tonne**

On Feb 28, 10:45*pm, "Ron Barwick" > wrote:
> (CNN) -- Groups seeking to repeal a controversial Alabama
> immigration law are asking the state's highly influential auto
> manufacturing industry to join their cause.
>
> The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote
> letters to all three of the state's foreign-owned automakers
> highlighting that the bill has created "widespread racial
> profiling and other discrimination ... particularly against
> anyone suspected of being foreign in Alabama."
>
> The National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, the United Auto
> Workers and the Southern Poverty Law Center have requested
> meetings with auto executives hoping to discuss how the bill is
> affecting the state's image and, potentially, its economy.
>
> "Your leadership in the area of social justice is required to
> help undo the damage caused by H.B. 56," the groups say in an
> open letter to Honda, Daimler AG and Hyundai executives. "Unless
> we work together to rein in this growing intolerance, the acts
> of intimidation against foreigners in Alabama and in other
> states will continue."
>
> Lisa Navarrete, a spokeswoman for La Raza, said, "We are not
> asking them to take to the streets... (we are) seeking to become
> allies."
>
> She noted that executives from two of the automakers "have
> experienced firsthand what the consequences of this law are,"
> and that their experience "played a part" in the campaign to
> enlist their support.
>
> Last year, police in Tuscaloosa pulled over a Mercedes-Benz
> executive because of a problem with the tag on the rental car he
> was driving, and detained him when he didn't have proper
> identification on hand. (Mercedes is a division of Daimler AG).
>
> A Honda official was detained in another incident.
>
> Mercedes representatives did not return repeated e-mails or a
> phone call from CNN requesting comment about the groups'
> outreach. Honda did not return e-mails.
>
> Chris Hosford, a spokesman for Hyundai, confirmed in an e-mail
> that the company had received the groups' letter and said the
> company does not take a position on the immigration law one way
> or the other.
>
> H.B. 56, which became law in September 2011, is widely
> considered to be one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in
> the country. It allows police to ask for legal status in certain
> situations and voids contracts if one party is not in the
> country legally.
>
> Most of the law has thus far withstood court scrutiny, but an
> appeals court has issued an injunction against enforcing a
> requirement that public schools ask for the citizenship status
> of new students.
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/29/us/ala...migration-law-
> automakers/

Look at these rodents:

>"The National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, the United Auto
> Workers and the Southern Poverty Law Center have requested
> meetings with auto executives hoping to discuss how the bill is
> affecting the state's image and, potentially, its economy."