Farmers Branch Begins To Back Down

It looks like Farmers Branch officials are beginning to realize they passed an unconstitutional law when they banned the rental of apartments to immigrants without a green card. Sensing that U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay was about to rule their new law violated the U.S. Constitution, attorneys for Farmers Branch have offered up some "compromises", and asked the judge to choose among them.

In issuing his restraining order on May 21, the judge had written that "the city has attempted to regulate immigration in violation of the U.S. Constitution."

They city has offered three alternatives to the judge. One would simply cut out any reference to U.S. Housing and Urban Development's prohibition on providing housing to illegal immigrants (it was determined that HUD's rules would also apply to many people who were in the country legally).

Another alternative would be to drop the $500-a-day penalty on landlords and eliminate the need to provide paperwork proving a renter was a citizen. It would however force renters to sign a document declaring they were legal immigrants.

The third alternative would eliminate the $500-a-day penalty and the need to sign a document, but would force renters to provide documentation showing they were legal immigrants. These alternatives would still allow the city to pursue renters for "fraud".

Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (one of the groups suing the city) did not think the city's compromises were legally proper. She said, "That's not an appropriate thing for a judge to do. The judge decides what is constitutional and what is unconstitutional. The judge does not rewrite ordinances."

Ms. Perales is right. The city has stepped in a large pile of racist crap, and now they want the judge to pull them out of it. But that is not his job. His job is simply to point out the smelly nature of what they've stepped into -- it's their job to get out of it and clean their boots.

I suspect the city officials don't know how to write a constitutional ordinance. If so, they should resign. Their racist ordinance is unconstitutional, and this judge is fixing to tell them that. I hope the humiliation will be enough to keep them from pursuing further bigoted actions.