Montgomery, AL Immigration Policy: Sanctuary Policy Preemption (2026)

Code Section 6-6 bars any person from knowingly employing, recruiting, or referring for a fee an illegal alien, or knowingly paying an employee for a scheme that funnels compensation to an illegal alien. An employer has a defense if it collected and documented lawful-resident verification at least 14 days after hire, or ran the federal work-authorization verification service within that window, even if the documentation later proves false. Complaints go to the city's department of finance; the director investigates and, on substantial evidence, holds a contested-case hearing under the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act before deciding whether a violation occurred.

Penalties escalate with each finding: a first violation gets the business license suspended until the owner files a sworn statement that it is no longer employing illegal aliens; a second violation within three years of the first order suspends the license for a full year; and a third violation within that same three-year window triggers permanent revocation of the license and an order barring the violator from doing business anywhere in the city. This is an employer-sanctions ordinance, not a policing or detainer policy: it says nothing about whether Montgomery police or jail staff cooperate with federal immigration detainers, and the code contains no separate sanctuary-city resolution or 287(g) agreement.