Farmers have lost millions of dollars of crops, businesses are losing their employees of foreign descent despite their legal status, children are scared to go to school, immigrants cannot sign up to pay for state utilities, and now the libraries are following in their footsteps.
Even library visitors have not been spared from Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law, HB 56. Since Sept. 1 (before the law went into effect), the North Shelby County Library has asked people who want a library card to prove their legal status or citizenship. The president of the library’s board of directors defended the decision, saying, “We have to follow the rules that all businesses must follow.” The library is considered a public corporation but operates as a nonprofit after the state legislature created the district in 1988, so it possibly falls under a provision in HB 56 that bans business transactions between the state and undocumented immigrants.
If you have brown skin, live in the state of Alabama, and are interested in obtaining a library card, you may want to take your birth certificate with you, whether you are legal or not. Because I highly doubt they're requesting that white people provide proof of citizenship or legal status.
That would just be un-American.