Racist Arizona Immigration Law Earns It First Lawsuit -- And It's From a Pastor

 ANNISTON, Ala— It had not been but a few hours following federal Judge Susan Lovelace Blackburn’s September 26 approval of HB56, which criminalizes undocumented immigrants, when Manuel Hernández heard the siren.

He had just left a gas station near the town of Warrior, Alabama, in a rural area when an undercover detective detained him.

"They never said why they stopped us," said Hernández, who is pastor of the Prayer Center for All Nations in Aniston, Alabama and is also undocumented.

Several days since the passage of HB 56 - the toughest law against undocumented immigrants in the country - police departments in the state of Alabama had not yet received training on how to enforce the law, leaving some departments to come up with their own interpretation.

Hernández, a 36-year-old from Puebla, Mexico could become the first person to file a lawsuit claiming his civil rights were violated in connection with HB 56.

"I think it was racism, for being Hispanic," said the pastor, who is talking with lawyers to file a legal appeal after being deprived of his liberty.

Hernández said that as soon the detective stopped him, he asked for his documentation, obviously doubting his legal status in the country.

The pastor showed his Mexican passport and his Mexican Consular ID card, as well as a card issued by the American Association of Chaplains, which he uses to identify himself as a pastor during his visits to hospitals and prisons. 

The detective questioned the validity of all his documents, the pastor said. The officer also told Hernandez that he was committing a crime for having a chaplain identification cared with the state’s official seal.

"[The officer] accused him of not being a pastor," said Fernando Rodriguez, who is a pastor at a different church, the House of Prayer Church in Albertville, Alabama, who had been traveling with Hernandez at the time. The officer also questioned Rodriguez, a native of Honduras, on his immigration status but fortunately he had his green card.

Hernández ,however, was arrested on charges of carrying identification with the Alabama state seal and spent several days in a Warrior, Alabama jail where he claims he was discriminated against for being Hispanic.

"I asked for a Spanish [language] Bible to pray, and they did not want to give me one," Hernández said. He also heard detention officials making comments behind his back thinking he didn’t speak English. "He is illegal and must be treated as an illegal," he remembers hearing.

La Opinión intended to speak with the Warrior police chief, but they did not respond to several requests. A call inquiring about the charges against Hernández was transferred to the same detective who arrested him, and that detective refused to give his name "because I do not want to appear in the newspaper." 

"It has nothing to do with the new immigration law. It has to do with the fact that he was driving at an excessive speed," the detective said, in resoponse to the accusation that he had racially profiled Hernández.

"In my opinion, all of this immigration (stuff) is being exaggerated," he said.

Pastor Rodriguez, who was traveling with the detained, asked why Hernandez wasn’t just given a speeding ticket, if the issue had in fact been excessive speed.

The detective said it was a felony to use the state seal or official seal on an unofficial piece of identification. However, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, where the town of Warrior is located, said their interpretation of that state law was different.

The local statute indicates that it is a felony if the person uses it as commercial identification or tries to pass off the identification as a document issued by the State Department of Public Safety.