Situation In June 2011, Alabama HB 56, the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, an anti-illegal immigration bill, was signed into law. It faced multiple legal challenges, and among those provisions still in effect afterwards are that it forbids employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants for any job and it requires businesses to validate the immigration status of employees. Fearing deportation and harassment, many of the legal and illegal immigrant agricultural workers abruptly relocated to other states for work causing a severe labor shortage. The agriculture industry has not fully recovered from the shortage and efforts to recruit non-immigrant workers have not been successful. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States..." Inmate labor has been used for agriculture in many states, including Alabama, as a permissible "involuntary servitude." Inmates are compensated mere cents per day of labor with the remainder recovered for their confinement. Where inmates are used for farm labor, it has usually been on the grounds of the facility or on nearby land. Many parolees have valid agricultural skills learned during their incarceration, but many farm employers are hesitant to hire workers with criminal records. A group of Alabama State Legislators have drafted a bill to improve the employment opportunities for parolees in Alabama by reducing the minimum wage allowed for those persons. This decreased wage would be valid for employers in the agricultural industry and limited to the fourteen Black Belt counties. The bill has the goal of improving employment rates in these counties for parolees who live, were incarcerated, and who may have served on farm or related operations while incarcerated. For the cost of two regular employees, the employer would be able to hire three parolees for the same positions. The state correctional facilities in Black Belt counties are: Easterling in Clio and Ventress in Clayton in Barbour County; Bullock in Union Springs in Bullock County; Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka in Elmore County, and; Kilby in Mount Meigs in Montgomery County. Many of the inmates held in these facilities have their permanent residence in that same or in an adjacent county. Upon release of all such parolees, the local agricultural businesses will be informed so that they might offer them employment. In addition, as a condition of their parole, for the parolee to receive government assistance such as supplemental nutrition assistance programs (SNAP), employment at these agricultural businesses is required, but if and only if no other employment is attainable. The bill allows parolees from other state correctional facilities to be employed if they are willing to relocate to the Black Belt counties. A hearing will be held in the State Legislature on the provisions of the bill. Several state and regional organizations have been invited to testify on the legality and implications of the bill.

Stakeholders Southern Poverty Law Center Project H.O.P.E. Re-Entry Initiative (DOJ) Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice Center for Employment Opportunities

Task You are representing one of the stakeholders invited to the hearing. Your task is to develop recommendations for your stakeholder to either support or oppose the State bill