HB376The bill, titled the Laken Riley Act, won't get a final vote this legislative session because of time constraints, according to state Rep. Ernie Yarbrough.

Rep. Yarbrough (R-Trinity) introduced the bill earlier this year in response to the February kidnapping and murder of Laken Riley, an undergraduate nursing student at Augusta University.

The bill would allow local law enforcement agencies to partner with federal immigration authorities to enforce federal immigration and customs laws.

Yarbrough spoke about the bill's future on WVNN's “The Yaffee Program” on Tuesday.

“Clearly, our country is in an unsafe situation,” Yarbrough said, “because the federal government has largely abdicated its responsibility at the highest level to enforce existing laws. In America, we have an immigration problem. We have people coming to this country seeking freedom and rights and opportunity, freedom to worship God, and yet in many countries around the world, those freedoms are suppressed and closed down. So we want to address immigration, but we have to do it in a lawful way.”

Yarborough also provided specific details about how local law enforcement agencies can assist with the federal effort.

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“So the idea is that our units in the field will have an MOU with the federal government to help enforce existing immigration laws,” he explained. “So what that means is that if we have an illegal immigrant who is engaged in criminal activity, local law enforcement can apprehend them within 48 hours, contact ICE, Homeland Security or wherever else they need to, verify their status, and then work with NCIC to see if they're wanted in other states, what their immigration status is, and if they're here illegally and they're committing a crime, they need to be deported.”

He said the bill's sponsors worked with Democrats in the Alabama Legislature to make the bill a more concrete, bipartisan effort.

“So we worked with both parties,” he said. “We added amendments to this bill that make sure it doesn't impact constitutional rights in any way. The goal of law enforcement is not to impede the American Dream, but to ensure they can operate safely and lawfully, and to remove those who engage in crime.”

Yarbrough said he was disappointed the measure couldn't pass this session, but he hopes it will be taken up in the future.

“It's unfortunate that it didn't pass,” he said, “but we're going to try our hardest to get this through next session.”

Yaffe is a contributing writer for Yellow Hammer News and hosts “The Yaffe Program” weekdays from 9-11 a.m. WhistlerYou can follow us on Twitter @Yaffe