Many towns, from Hazleton, Pennsylvania to Valley Park, Missouri, have passed local ordinances to combat the harm caused by illegal aliens. These ordinances discourage landlords from renting to illegals and penalize employers who hire them.

About 100 towns and counties in America have considered these laws. Oklahoma and five other states have passed laws imposing sanctions on employers who hire illegal aliens. Until recently, however, no laws of this sort were passed in Texas, a state having a high concentration of illegal aliens.

Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb, became the first Texas town to pass an ordinance preventing landlords from renting to illegal aliens. Ordinance 2903 simply required landlords to verify the legal status of their tenants. The ACLU and others, including even the prominent New York law firm of Weil, Gotschal and Manges, sued Farmers Branch to overturn this ordinance (http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/immigrants/vasquez_complaint.pdf). On its website, the ACLU brags that it is also challenging such ordinances and laws in five other states: California, Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania (http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/discrim/27859res20070105.html).

Arguments against the Farmers Branch ordinance included speculation about negative financial effects; the possibility it excludes legal immigrants and citizens from renting; a claim that the law was difficult to comply with because it lacked clarity; and an argument it makes property owners act as “police.”

District Judge Sam A. Lindsay held in favor of the ACLU, and prevented the town from enforcing the ordinance. Villas at Parkside v. City of Farmers Branch, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42449 (N.D. Tex. 2008). On May 28 he declared the rule unconstitutional, and granted summary judgment without even allowing the case to go to trial. He held that federal law preempts this particular ordinance. In other words, he found that this ordinance conflicts with federal law concerning immigration, such as federal housing regulations, and thus the ordinance is invalid.

Farmers Branch, and countless towns like it, could thereby be left helpless to the harm done by unlawful immigration, which can include heinous crimes, increased violence, economic harm, and cultural division. For some small towns, the unlawfulness associated with an influx of illegal aliens causes a dramatic change in overall living conditions.

Representatives of Farmers Branch said they expected the ordinance to be overturned, but had no intention of appealing. Instead, they tried a new tactic. Determined to defend themselves against illegal aliens and anticipating the legal ruling, last January the City Council adopted a new Ordinance 2952, which requires prospective renters to pay $5 for a license to rent a house or apartment. The city government itself then checks the names of the renters against a federal database to ensure they are here legally. Michael Jung of Strasburger & Price, the law firm representing the city, said, “The legal problems ... [Judge Lindsay] identifies with Ordinance 2903 have been addressed and we believe resolved in Ordinance 2952.”

So the battle rages on between towns trying to protect themselves against unlawfulness, and supremacist courts that strike down reasonable ordinances. Unless towns can defend themselves against illegal aliens, the unlawful migration will only worsen. With no incentive to become legal, aliens exploit America’s benefits at no cost to themselves.

Some courts have upheld local laws against unlawful immigration. Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said, “There are a lot of conflicting legal opinions floating out there, and obviously, at some point, they are going to have to be bundled up by a higher court.” But it will be many years before the U.S. Supreme Court takes one of these cases and resolves the problem nationwide.