Sen. Tuberville warns Alabama Mayor Stewart over ICE protection plans
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Irondale Mayor James Stewart Jr. cited Martin Luther King Jr. as a reason to protect illegal immigrants and pledged funds to train activists to pursue ICE agents. But his actions could lead to federal backlash, with Alabama’s senior senator warning the mayor that he “won’t like me very much” if he continues.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. The man, himself running this year to replace term-limited Gov. Kay Ivey, warned Stewart that the Democrat would have no such chance at beating the feds.
“When I become governor, Alabama will have a zero-tolerance policy for rogue mayors who try to break federal law,” Tuberville, former Auburn football coach, told Fox News Digital.
“Like it or not, federal law says illegal immigrants must be deported. If mayors don’t like it, they should run for Congress.”
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Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., speaks to the left while President Donald Trump listens to his right. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Stewart’s office after he said: February mayoral bulletin “Watching ICE operations tear families apart in Irondale underscores the urgent need to address immigration policies affecting our community, which brings me back to King’s last speech in which he said he sees the Promised Land but may not get there.”
“I understand that now. This may be my last term. But I still have to do God’s will. Every day. When Dr. King said the night before they killed him, ‘I just want to do God’s will,’ it brought me to tears. Because now I know what that means,” Stewart said.
Stewart said ICE operations “follow the same pattern” King described in his letter from the Birmingham jail next door to Irondale.
Tuberville also disputed reports from the Alabama news outlet 1819 News – named for the year the state was founded – Irondale, Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) helping programs such as an “alert system” to keep track of [ICE] agents by order of the city’s mayor.”
In this regard, Stewart said in the news release that his King-inspired works were not made “while the families who built this community were being hunted.”
Days after Stewart appeared in the newsletter, knife-wielding Mexican illegal immigrant Jose Ba-Ruiz was arrested and charged by the Department of Justice on Monday with assaulting an ICE agent in the Birmingham area.
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Interstate 20 enters Alabama from Georgia, and drivers save an hour by switching to Central Time in Abernathy, Ala. (Charles Creitz/Fox News Digital)
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Ivey supported Tuberville, saying Montgomery would always work with DHS:
“Unlike Minnesota, we enforce the law in Alabama,” Ivey said.
“We are proud to work with ICE to do this: enforce the law and protect our citizens from criminals and lawbreakers.”
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While Stewart did not respond to Fox News Digital by time of publication, he said: Fox’s Birmingham affiliate He said Irondale was not a sanctuary city and would not hide criminals from the law, and then claimed he would not actually interfere with ICE operations.
“Most of the things we see now are things that happened 300 to 400 years ago.” he told the outlet. “We want to be a law-abiding city, but we also know our role.”
