By Ed Pilkinington in New York, Guardian.co.uk, Dec. 2, 2011

To arrest one foreign car-making executive under Alabama's new tough immigration laws may be regarded as a misfortune (Last month Alabama police arrested a German executive working at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa for failing to carry a valid driver's licence); to arrest a second looks like carelessness.

A judge has acted to put a Japanese employee of Honda Motor Company out of his misery by dismissing immigration charges against him, three days after he was booked under Alabama's new immigration laws that have been billed as the most swingeing in America. Ichiro Yada is one of about 100 Japanese managers of the company on assignment in southern state.

Yada was stopped in Leeds, Alabama, at a checkpoint set up by police to catch unlicenced drivers. He was ticketed on the spot, despite the fact that he showed an international driver's licence, a valid passport and a US work permit. [....]