Law enforcement officials across Alabama were unsure how they would enforce — let alone pay for — HB 56, the state’s draconian immigration law, when it went into effect. Terry Davis, the president of the Alabama Association of Chiefs of Police, warned that officers were stretched too thin by the far-reaching demands of the new law, in addition to their regular duties.

One sheriff in Limestone County told the Athens News-Courier that his department’s resources are being strained to the breaking point by investigations prompted by the immigration law — including people asking police to investigate if their neighbors are undocumented immigrants:

Sheriff Mike Blakely said most of his department’s resources are not being stretched thin because of illegal immigration arrests, but instead because of investigations into the alleged mistreatment of illegal immigrants. [...]

In terms of the arrests of illegal immigrants, the sheriff said there hasn’t been a noticeable increase because he feels many illegal immigrants have left the community. However, he said the department’s call volume is rising because residents want officers to investigate neighbors who they believe are illegal.

“There’s a lot of people confused about the law and people are getting frustrated with us,” he said. “If they suspect someone is illegal, we can’t just go out and check them out. The law prohibits us from doing that. We can contact ICE, but unless they’re committing a crime, we have no authority (to arrest them).”

Alabama’s anti-immigrant law is already a clear disaster for community safety, distracting police from focusing on violent crime and leading immigrant communities to distrust law enforcement officials. Equally disturbing is the evidence that the law is undermining the fabric of communities by sowing suspicion and turning neighbors against each other.

At the last GOP presidential debate, Newt Gingrich asserted his support for an immigration plan that would accord an undocumented immigrant “red card” status — that is, give them a legal right to be here without providing a path to citizenship. Mitt Romney then seized a political opportunity to engage in a false attack against Gingrich, slamming the former Speaker for embracing “amnesty.”

Earlier this week, Bloomberg news reported that, in 2006, Romney “took a nearly identical position” as Gingrich, arguing undocumented immigrants living in the United States should not be “rounded up and box-carred out,” and that they should “get in line” to apply for citizenship.

During his interview with Fox News tonight, Bret Baier asked Romney about this hypocritical stand. Romney affirmed that he does believe undocumented immigrants should indeed be given a pathway to citizenship by being placed “in the back of the line.” Baier astutely noted, “Isn’t that what Gingrich is saying?” Romney incorrectly responded that Gingrich’s plan allows them to “become citizens” and provides “amnesty.”

When Baier asked whether Romney was going to send undocumented immigrants home as they apply for legal status, Romney uncomfortably stammered for a few seconds. He then circled around the issue: “Whether they apply here, whether they apply by going home — I think I’ve said in the past I think it makes more sense for them to go home, if we set up a system for them to apply here…” Baier cut him off and asked again what Romney planned to do immediately with undocumented immigrants who are already here. Again, Romney had no response. Watch it:

In 2008, Romney took the view that every undocumented immigrant had to leave. “Under the ideal setting, at least in my view, you say to those who have just come in recently, we’re going to send you back home immediately, we’re not going to let you stay here,” Romney explained. “You just go back home. For those that have been here, let’s say, five years, and have kids in school, you allow kids to complete the school year, you allow people to make their arrangements, and allow them to return back home. Those that have been here a long time, with kids that have responsibilities here and so forth, you let stay enough time to organize their affairs and go home.”

In a recent interview, one Romney adviser explained that his boss’s current position is essentially to make an undocumented immigrant’s life so unbearable here in the United States that the individual decides to pick up and leave voluntarily.

For an understanding of all the GOP presidential candidates’ views on immigration, check out our compilation here.

GOP presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently sat down for an interview with Yahoo! News’s The Ticket.

At one point, the interviewer, Chris Moody, asked Gingrich if he still supports a bill he introduced in the ’90s that would’ve given capital punishment to drug smugglers. Gingrich responded that he does support this policy for cartel leaders and that he wants to see a new drug strategy overall. He then went on to praise Singapore for its “very draconian” approach to the drug war:

MOODY: In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?

GINGRICH: I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they’ve done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, ‘These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.’ If you’re serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we’re going to have drugs in this country. Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

Gingrich’s endorsement of Singapore’s drug war is stunning. The country’s “drug laws are among the world’s harshest. Anyone aged 18 or over convicted of carrying more than 15 grams of heroin faces mandatory execution by hanging.” In 2005, Singapore infamously executed an Australian citizen for possession of .4 kilograms of heroin.

Gingrich’s praise of a Singapore-style drug policy is also yet another example of the GOP frontrunner’s contempt for the Constitution. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s it relates to crimes against individuals . . . the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.” Although Kennedy left open to possibility of execution for “treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State,” Singapore-style drug policy is clearly unconstitutional.

Then again, it probably doesn’t matter to Gingrich whether his proposal is constitutional or not. After all, he recently pledged to simply ignore court decisions he disagrees with.

You’ve got to feel a little bad for onetime GOP front runner Gov. Rick Perry — his frequent gaffes and embarrassing ignorance of basic facts have driven him to the bottom of primary polls. Perry has consistently demonstrated his complete lack of understanding of a document he claims to revere, the Constitution, with bogus claims that programs like Medicare, Social Security, and, well, everything else are somehow unconstitutional.

Today, Perry made another pretty stunning constitutional mistake in New Hampshire, telling a group of college students that the voting age is 21. The 26th Amendment made 18 the legal voting age across the country.

At Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, Perry told the crowd, “Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support” — eliciting a few chuckles from the crowd. Watch it:

Perry also got the date of the election wrong — the general will be held Nov. 6, 2012, while the New Hampshire Republican primary, which brought Perry to the state, will take place on Jan. 10.