from The Birmingham News

By Victoria L. Coman

One of two council members who voted against Irondale’s resolution on immigration status checks during traffic stops or investigations says the city should have waited on the outcome of a federal lawsuit challenging a law in Arizona.

Irondale passed its resolution Tuesday, the same day the U.S. Justice Department sued Arizona over a law that requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person’s immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.

Councilman James D. Stewart Jr., who is black, said today he understands concerns that some people may have.

“If we were to allow for laws to be written to discriminate against minority groups, then how many rights would we as African-Americans be denied?”

Stewart said passing the resolution now does not make sense because if the federal government prevails in its lawsuit, “then you find out you’re in conflict with federal law.”

He also pointed to a statement near the end of the resolution which says “nothing in this resolution requires, condones, or approves any profiling based on race, creed, color or place of origin.”

“It’s like the ‘but’ in the English language,” Stewart said. The reference to profiling would not be needed if the resolution was designed to prohibit that in the first place, he said.

Also today, the Southern Poverty Law Center requested a copy of the resolution from Irondale.

Sam Boothe, an attorney with the Immigration Justice Project of the SPLC, said the center is looking closely at the resolution to determine if it is constitutional.

The center, based in Montgomery, is a nonprofit civil rights organization that combats bigotry and discrimination.

A large part of its concern is that the resolution’s wording does not refer to the type of person who is involved in the investigation or traffic stop, Boothe said.

“It could be a victim of a crime or it could be a person reporting a crime,” Boothe said. “It makes it harder for police to effectively police their communities. Everyone should feel that if they see a crime or if they are a victim of crime, they should be able to contact the police.”

Continue reading this story at al.com.