© The Associated Press/Jay ReevesIn this Oct. 6, 2011 photo taken from video, Jazmin Rivera, right, a case manager with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, works with an unidentified immigrant in her office in Birmingham, Ala. Parents living in the country illegally are scared of deportation under Alabama's new immigration law, and Rivera has helped many with paperwork to provide care for their children in case the parents are arrested.
Terrified by Alabama's strict new immigration crackdown, parents living in the state illegally say they are doing something that was unthinkable just days ago - asking friends, relatives, co-workers and acquaintances to take their children if they're arrested or deported.
Many illegal immigrants signed documents in the past week allowing others to care for their children if needed, assistance groups say, and a couple living illegally in nearby Shelby County extracted a promise from the man's boss to send their three young children - all U.S. citizens - to Mexico should they be jailed under the law.
A key sponsor of the measure, state Sen. Scott Beason, said such concerns weren't raised when legislators were considering the bill, and he wonders if the stories now are designed to "pull on heart strings" and build sympathy for illegal immigrants.
But for Maria Patino - who prays every time she leaves home - even a chance encounter with police could end with her two elementary-age children being left alone or taken to foster care if she and her husband are sent back to Mexico. Both are in the country illegally and have no friends or relatives close enough to take in the kids.
"Every time I leave I don't know if I will come back," Patino, 27, said through tears. "I can't stop working. My daughters need shoes and other things."
