I understand the complaints regarding illegal immigration, however I don’t think the steps being taken by Farmers Branch, TX are prudent, effective, or legal.

Anti-illegal-immigrant law OKd in Texas – Yahoo News

“FARMERS BRANCH, Texas – Voters in this Dallas suburb became the first in the nation Saturday to prohibit landlords from renting to most illegal immigrants.
The ban was approved by a vote of 68 percent to 32 percent in final, unofficial returns. “”The ordinance requires apartment managers to verify that renters are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants before leasing to them, with some exceptions.

“Property managers or owners who break the rule face a misdemeanor charge punishable by a fine of up to $500.”

Ultimately, the issue of immigration is to be dealt with by the US federal government, rather than states or localities. If I were a landlord in that city, I would refuse to follow that ordinance and would challenge it on three grounds. First, it would require me, as a private citizen, to do the job of the government. Where does it end? Will they then require all businesses to require ID from customers before serving them? “Let me repeat that order: 2 hamburgers and an order of fries. That’ll be $4.85. I’ll need to see two picture IDs and your social security card.” Second, the job of dealing with immigration and a process for naturalization is a power given to Congress in Article I, section 8, and is not reserved to the states. The ultimate solution needs to come from Congress. And third, I would challenge it strictly on principal.

Instead of actually dealing with the problem of illegal immigration, the city of Farmers Branch will just spend millions of dollars defending itself in lawsuits and irritate business leaders.

The only effective way to deal with illegal immigration is for the federal and state governments to cut off the reason why immigrants are here in the first place, and that is jobs. If it were very difficult for illegal immigrants to find jobs, they they would be less likely to come. But even after 10 years of Republicans controlling Congress, six of those with a Republican President, there wasn’t much that actually went on other than whooping, hollering, and chest pounding. Seems that’s all that ever happens regarding the subject of illegal immigration.

The IRS gives out tax payer IDs but ICE (formerly INS) doesn’t know. Social Security numbers are concurrently used by multiple people. ICE isn’t informed. There are other examples of the federal government not actually working together on the problem, but you get the drift. Ultimately, it is because Congress really doesn’t really want to cut off the flow of cheap, cheap labor. The reason is that a majority of the Republicans don’t want to upset the business base that funds their campaign.

A quick-fix solution would be for the federal governmental departments to coordinate. Anytime a social security account is used by multiple people, flag it for La Migre. And put the IRS and ICE in contact. A long-term solution, not that Congress would ever want one is to create a national ID card system. Then, Congress would pass a law that says anyone doing business that is in interstate commerce must check the ID against a government funded background check that would return information regarding the person as well as a photo. States would also pass laws requiring all other employers to run background checks using the same system. Boom! Illegal immigration would dry up.

Until then, immigrants aren’t the real problem, and landlords shouldn’t be deputized just because they own a specific piece of property they lease out to another. And the issue of illegal immigration is a red herring certain [non]-leaders wish to use to distract everyone from all the real issues that we face in our every day lives, the wars being waged, bribery and scandal in the political ranks, collapsing health care system, rising college tuitions, unfolding housing crisis, decreasing value of the dollar, and an overall fleecing of our country (have you seen the federal debt amount recently?).