Under Alabama’s harmful immigration law, applicants for professional licenses have to prove that they are either a citizen or living in the U.S. legally. In order to verify a person’s status, non-U.S. residents have to be cleared through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. State officials have asked the federal government to let the state use SAVE more widely, but federal officials have not responded and only a few of the professional licensing boards are even close to being able to use the system.

As a result, nurses and other professionals who must be licensed have to prove that they are legal residents are stuck in limbo:

Nursing board director Genell Lee said she applied for SAVE approval in October 2011, and got a letter earlier this month saying the board had been approved to use the system.

She said there’s still some paperwork to be done before the state can use the system. While she waits, Lee said, she’s been holding on to foreign nurses’ license applications.

“I’ve got a couple of applications from nurses who aren’t citizens,” she said. “I’m not permitted by law to determine whether they’re legal, so I’m waiting for SAVE.”

She said those nurses are working in other states now.

“But they want to work here,” she said.

In Georgia, applicants for professional licenses are trapped in a paperwork nightmare as well. The state’s immigration law has a similar provision to Alabama’s anti-immigrant measure that requires that anyone in Georgia who is applying for or renewing a professional license to prove they are in the U.S. legally. As a result, applications are delayed for weeks or months instead of days.

When Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled last year that a controversial provision in Alabama’s immigration law requiring schools to check the immigration status of newly enrolled students could go into effect, schools immediately saw some Latino students staying home from school or withdrawing out of fear that their families could be deported if they were questioned about their immigration status at school.

About two weeks later, the 11th Circuit temporarily overruled Blackburn’s original decision and stopped schools from asking about the immigration status of new students. And when the appeals court gave its final ruling on Alabama’s HB 56, it struck down most of the harmful immigration law, including the schools provision. Even though the state’s attack on school children was only in effect for two weeks, Justice Department officials reported that over 13 percent of Hispanic children left school in the school year during which the law was briefly in effect.

But a year later and into a new school year, some Alabama school districts are seeing more Latino students. Although the Alabama Department of Education’s full numbers on Latino enrollment across the state will not be available until late October, early signs suggest the court orders blocking the law succeeded in reversing some of its impact on Latino students:

“When the law was first passed, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Jeff Goodwin, superintendent of the Oxford school system. “We lost 10 or 12 after the first week, but then they came back.”

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Oxford school district has more Hispanic students than any other local school system, and has seen the largest increase in Hispanic residents in the last 10 years. Oxford’s numbers show the school system currently has 336 Hispanic students, an increase from the 324 enrolled in 2011. . . . . The Anniston school system had a slight increase to 40 Hispanic students this year from 32 in the previous year. According to the Census, Anniston’s Hispanic population dropped to 216 from 409 in the last 10 years.

The Calhoun County school system has also seen an increase in Hispanic student enrollment – with 230 Hispanic students this year compared to 215 the previous year.

The fact that schools in Calhoun County are seeing an increasing number of Latino students suggests that the court orders worked. The courts appear to have stopped a discriminatory law from further damaging the state of Alabama, and as a result, immigrant children do not have to be scared of going to school.

When the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB 1070 — invalidating much of the law and limiting the scope of the law’s “show me your papers” provision — its ruling clarified the constitutionality of the harmful state immigration laws also but left many questions unanswered about laws in other states that went even further than Arizona’s.

But in the first ruling on a state immigration law following the Supreme Court’s SB 1070 decision, the 11th Circuit federal appeals court struck down most of Alabama’s HB 56, including the worst provisions like the state’s attack on school children:

– School officials cannot ask about students’ immigration status: Under HB 56, schools were required to determine the immigration status of every newly enrolled student. As a result, students stayed home from school once the provision went into effect in late September out of confusion over the law and fear that they or their parents could be deported. By February, 13 percent of Latino students dropped out by February as families fled Alabama because of the immigration policy.

– Alabama cannot ban contracts between lawful and unlawful residents.: Alabama’s HB 56 included an unprecedented ban against contracting with undocumented immigrants. No other state or nation has such a measure, which, for example, could have made it illegal for a landlord to rent an apartment to someone who is not a legal resident. Politicians readily admitted that the goal of HB 56 was to make Alabama a hostile place for undocumented immigrants, and in blocking the contracts provision, the court recognized that the point of the contracts section was “forcing undocumented individuals out of Alabama.”

Additionally, the 11th Circuit stopped Alabama and Georgia from making it a crime to transport or harbor an undocumented immigrant in those states. Both states included these provisions in their similar anti-immigrant laws approved by state legislators more than a year ago. Arizona’s SB 1070 also makes its a crime to harbor or transport someone who is not a legal resident, but the Supreme Court did not rule on it. Today, a civil rights coalition is asking a federal judge in Arizona to block this section of SB 1070 especially now that it has been struck down in Alabama and Georgia.

But in its ruling about Alabama’s 2011 law, the federal appeals court let a portion of HB 56 stand that makes it a felony for an undocumented immigrant to “attempt to enter into a business transaction with the state or a political subdivision of the state. Originally, this provision was interpreted so broadly that it prevented undocumented immigrants from having running water at their homes, but legislators made changes to the measure last spring so that it only applies to a “public records transaction,” like a driver’s license or business license. The court ruled that the state could prevent undocumented immigrants from applying for these licenses just as it agreed that the state could prevent people who are not legally in the U.S. from attending state universities and community colleges.

The federal court removed most of the worst portions of the state immigration laws, and as the Supreme Court ruled on SB 1070, it left a window open for future legal challenges against Alabama and Georgia’s “show me your papers” provisions requiring law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is in the country illegally. In all, the 11th Circuit’s ruling is a victory for immigrant advocates and a significant — if not total — loss for proponents of extreme “self-deportation” immigration policies.