Feds Sue Alabama Over Immigration Law

In a move that will shock exactly no one, the Department of Justice is treating Alabama’s extraordinarily harsh illegal immigration law the same way it treated Arizona’s: It’s suing. The DOJ is asking for an injunction stopping the law from going into effect on Sept. 1, arguing that it unconstitutionally steps on the federal government’s immigration powers, the Birmingham News reports.

“To put it in terms we relate to here in Alabama, you can only have one quarterback in a football game,” says the US Attorney for northern Alabama. “In immigration, the federal government is the quarterback.” Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano also released statements condemning the law, noting that even Birmingham’s chief of police opposes the law. It was one of two lawsuits filed against the law yesterday; the other was from the bishops in charge of Alabama’s Episcopal, Catholic, and United Methodist churches. (More Alabama illegal immigration stories.)