Alabama recently passed a tough immigration law modeled after the one in Arizona. One of the misleading claims made by opponents of the law is that it would make it illegal to give an illegal alien a ride. For instance, the Los Angeles Times makes the misleading claim that the law "makes it a crime to give a ride to an illegal immigrant".

In fact:

1. The Alabama law criminalizes transporting an illegal alien "in furtherance of the unlawful presence of the alien in the United States" and only by those who transport the illegal alien "knowingly, or in reckless disregard of the fact" that the illegal alien is here illegally. In other words, someone would have to know - or have a very strong suspicion - that someone was here illegally and would have to be transporting them in order to assist them remaining here illegally. While obviously prosecutors could try, it probably could not be used against those who just picked up a hitchhiker or who wer giving someone a ride to the hospital. See the excerpt from the law at [1].

2. That part of the Alabama law is highly similar to current federal law. It's not like Alabama is inventing highly onerous new legal concepts, they're simply more or less copying federal law. Whether Alabama has solid constitutional footing to have their own version of federal law is another matter of course. See the current federal law at [2].

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[1] From https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/202741/hb56-enrolled.pdf, bolding added:

Transport, or attempt to transport, or conspire to transport in this state an alien in furtherance of the unlawful presence of the alien in the United States, knowingly, or in reckless disregard of the fact, that the alien has come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of federal law. Conspiracy to be so transported shall be a violation of this subdivision.

[2] From this:

knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law