On August 1, 2011, the religious leaders of the Methodist, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic churches of Alabama filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, under 42 U.S.C. §1983, against the governor and attorney general of Alabama, and the district attorney of Madison County, Alabama. The plaintiffs, represented by the churches' attorneys, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the recently enacted H.B. 56 violated their constitutional rights. Specifically, plaintiffs claimed that enforcement of the law would prevent the churches and members of their congregations from freely practicing their religious duties to minister to "all of God's children" without regard to immigration status. Several provisions of H.B. 56 criminalize actions such as harboring or transporting an undocumented immigrant. Plaintiffs claimed that such actions were regularly undertaken by churches directly or by their congregants, and criminalizing the actions prevented the free exercise of their religious faith.

The Court (Chief Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn) ordered this case and two other related cases consolidated (United States v. Arizona and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley), but that order was dissolved a month later.

On August 5, 2011, plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction, which the court denied on September 28, 2011. The Court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge one provision of the law, and the other challenges to separate provisions were moot because enforcement was already preliminarily enjoined in the related case, United States v. Alabama [IM-AL-0005]. The Court granted the parties' requests to stay proceedings given the appeals pending in the related cases, United States v. Alabama and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley [IM-AL-0006].

On October 30, 2013, the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss the case as moot assuming the Court enters the proposed order in the related case, United States v. Alabama. In that case the parties asked the Court to enter a permanent injunction of Sections 13 and 27 of H.B. 56. If the injunction was granted, plaintiffs agreed that they would have received relief in this case.

The day before, the parties in the related cases, United States v. Alabama and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley, filed joint reports and proposed orders for judgment. Unlike in this case, those parties did not move to dismiss but rather agreed to permanent injunctions of most of the challenged provisions. As noted above, if granted the proposed order in United States v. Alabama would permanently enjoin the sections of the law (13 and 27) that were at issue in this case.

The court in the related cases issued orders on Nov. 25, 2013 approving settlements that permanently enjoined defendants from enforcing several provisions of H.B. 56, including 13 and 27. The same day, this court dismissed the case as moot without prejudice. The case is now closed.

Elizabeth Daligga - 06/22/2012
Jennifer Bronson - 11/03/2013
Virginia Weeks - 03/24/2018


compress summary