Immigrants in Alabama Can Face Harsher Sentences Than Citizens for the Same Crimes

[marmar]

(ProPublica) Time and again in Alabama, immigrants face harsher punishments for the same crimes as citizens, even when they have fewer prior convictions, a ProPublica review of more than 100 court cases found.

The cases include a Mexican immigrant who caused a fatal car crash and received a 61-year sentence — which exceeds the sentences of about 93% of all inmates convicted of similar crimes. Sent to prison in 2000, he’s one of the noncitizens who’s been incarcerated in Alabama the longest.

An immigrant detainee who set fire to his mattress inside a jail cell received a sentence twice as long as a citizen with a similar criminal history who committed the same offense in the same facility three months later.

And in a case ProPublica recently covered, a Mexican immigrant who crashed into a car and killed the driver received a sentence four times longer than anyone else involved in fatal crashes in that circuit court. ......................(more)

https://www.propublica.org/article/immigrants-alabama-harsher-sentences-citizens

[Sneederbunk]

1. Kind of flies in the face of Alabama's historical respect for people of color.