Dallas suburb faces lawsuit over ordinance targeting illegal immigrants
- United States
- 09/04/2008
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas challenges the latest version of a Farmers Branch municipal ordinance which prohibits illegal immigrants from occupying leased property. In the lawsuit against the Dallas suburb, several landlords and a former City Council member seek to enjoin enforcement of Ordinance 2952, which is scheduled to take effect Sept. 13. The plaintiffs claim it is unconstitutional because it violates the Supremacy Clause by regulating immigration and denies immigrants equal protection and due process rights. Anyone wishing to rent a single-family residence would be required to obtain an occupancy license, and the city building inspector would submit information from these license applications to a federal database, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE), to determine the applicants’ immigration status. This ordinance is different from prior versions because it relies on the federal government, rather than on landlords, to determine applicants’ status.
In May, US District Judge Sam Lindsay finalized a holding that an earlier law, Ordinance 2903, was unconstitutional. The Farmers Branch City Council passed the current ordinance in an attempt to cure the flaws identified by Lindsay, and the city has been defending the ordinances since an initial version was adopted in late 2006. More than 50 other US municipalities have contemplated similar laws, and last year a federal judge struck down two Hazleton, Pennsylvania ordinances designed to prevent illegal immigrants from living or working in the town.
