Sweet Home Alabama: Sneak Peek (VICE on HBO)

In 2011, the state of Alabama passed one of the harshest anti-immigrant laws in the history of the United States. Based on the hardline policy known as “self-deportation,” Alabama's HB-56 aimed to make life so miserable for illegal immigrants that they’d opt to leave the state on their own: the law granted police unprecedented powers to arrest, question, and detain suspected illegal immigrants, and even criminalized citizens who provided undocumented workers with jobs, housing, or transportation. The law created a climate of hostility that may have forced tens of thousands of immigrants to flee—and it may also have done real damage to the state’s economy. With illegal immigration roiling American communities and the upcoming presidential race, we sent Thomas Morton to Alabama to see what it would look like if undocumented workers just disappeared. Watch VICE Fridays at on HBO at 11PM, 10PM Central. Watch Season 1: http://bit.ly/VICE-HBO-S1 Watch Season 2: http://bit.ly/VICE-HBO-S2-E1 Click here to subscribe to VICE: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE Check out our full video catalog: http://bit.ly/VICE-Videos Videos, daily editorial and more: http://vice.com More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos Like VICE on Facebook: http://fb.com/vice Follow VICE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vice Read our Tumblr: http://vicemag.tumblr.com Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/vice Check out our Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/vicemag