Thread: Activist takes on illegal immigration

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/1598504 ... l=dfw_news

An activist who successfully went over officials’ heads to get senior citizens’ property taxes frozen in Arlington and Tarrant County says he’ll now turn his sights on illegal immigration.

Dave McElwee said he will push for city ordinances that will prohibit employers and landlords from accommodating illegal immigrants with jobs and places to live.

And he wants local law enforcement officials to cooperate with the federal government in a program that would authorize them to enforce immigration laws.

“We’re going to force these local officials one way or the other,” McElwee pledged. “We’re talking about every city in the county if we can do it.”

City council members fear that McElwee’s efforts could turn their meetings into battlegrounds over one of the country’s most contentious issues. Hispanic groups said they would fight McElwee’s efforts at council meetings and in the courts if necessary.

McElwee’s promise to act means a lot because he has a track record as a maverick who gets things done.

The 68-year-old and a small group of senior citizens who belong to his group, the Tarrant Alliance for Responsible Government, collected nearly 44,000 signatures to get a referendum to freeze county property taxes for senior citizens on the Nov. 7 ballot. It passed with nearly 88 percent of the vote.

Last year, he successfully got a senior property tax freeze approved by voters in Arlington, where he lives.

Not known for compromise
McElwee sometimes wears a cowboy hat or a baseball hat studded with patriotic pins. He served as an enlisted man in the Navy for 24 years. His son, a Marine, recently served in Iraq.

He’s talkative and, by many accounts, uncompromising.

A member of the Concerned Taxpayers of Arlington said the group limited the amount of time McElwee could talk because otherwise he would dominate so much of the meetings complaining about illegal immigration.

McElwee said he’s opposed to illegal immigration for a simple reason — it’s illegal.

“If these folks are not in the country legally, then they have no business being in our community,” McElwee said. “It’s openly and flagrantly violating the law. It’s a burden on schools, it’s a burden on hospitals, it’s a burden on law enforcement.”

Texas has had the largest annual increase in illegal immigration since 2000, according to a Department of Homeland Security report released in August.

The Lone Star State now has about 1.4 million illegal immigrants, 54,000 more than in 2000, according to the report. Only California has more.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 11.7 million illegal immigrants live in the United States.

Some municipalities have responded with ordinances aimed at illegal immigrants — the kind of ordinances McElwee wants.

Tim O’Hare, a city council member in Farmers Branch in Dallas County, proposed measures such as barring landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. His proposals brought dozens of activists on both sides of the issue to the Sept. 5 council meeting, where they got into a screaming match outside the council chambers. The council opted, at least temporarily, for a resolution calling on the federal government to enforce immigration law.

O’Hare said he would push on. On Monday, the council is scheduled to hear from Police Chief Sid Fuller about the possibility of coordinating with federal officials on enforcing immigration law.

Elsewhere in the country, a few cities have passed ordinances that ban employing and renting to illegal immigrants. The ordinances were swiftly met with lawsuits.

For example, the Puerto Rico Legal Defense and Education Fund has sued Hazelton, Pa., and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund has sued Escondido, Calif.

Marisol Perez, a staff lawyer with Mexican American Legal Defense in San Antonio, said her organization would probably sue any Texas cities that adopt such measures.

“They don’t have the authority to enforce immigration law locally,” she said.

Officials in Tarrant County cringe at the thought of such lawsuits, but people familiar with McElwee’s work said he won’t back off.

“Usually it’s either Dave’s way or no way,” said Joe Bruner, who stepped down from the Arlington City Council in May after six years.

A study in tenacity
Faye Landham, a member of Tarrant Alliance for Responsible Government, said she saw McElwee’s tenacity when he led the petition drive for freezing senior citizens’ taxes. He sat outside his home with a petition so that people driving by could stop and sign. He then took to the streets and civic groups.

“It wouldn’t have even been [on the ballot] if it wasn’t for Dave,” she said. “He was there for days and days and weeks and weeks before the rest of us even got started on it.  . . . Wherever he could get his foot in the door he would go and talk about the senior tax freeze.”

McElwee said this experience taught him that citizens can go over elected officials’ heads if they won’t do what citizens demand. So if he can’t get city councils to pass ordinances aimed at illegal immigrants, McElwee said he’ll push to change city charters through voter referendums.

“The majority of people out there want some changes made, and these councils are sitting on their thumbs,” McElwee said.

He said city officials’ claim that cracking down on illegal immigration is a federal responsibility is a “cop-out.”

City officials said it’s not a cop-out. That’s the way things are.

“We can’t deport anybody,” Arlington City Council member Sheri Capehart said. “I think mostly our hands are pretty much tied.”

She is worried about discussions on illegal immigration boiling over into heated arguments and pushing the city into doing law enforcement it does not have funds for.

Fort Worth City Council member Sal Espino said a city that cracks down on illegal immigration could put itself at risk of being sued.

“There has to be a fine balance. You have to worry about civil liberties and you have to worry about profiling,” he said.

Even Bob Whistler, a Bedford City Council member who publicly said the U.S. border with Mexico should be laced with barbed wire and minefields, said fighting illegal immigration might not be local officials’ responsibility.

“It’s a national government initiative more so than the local cities. I don’t know if we can overstep the government’s authority on this issue,” he said.

Fort Worth Police Lt. Dean Sullivan said crackdowns on illegal immigration could alienate Hispanic communities.

“We have exceedingly tried, stretching back to the ’80s, to bridge that gap,” Sullivan said. “We could take a step back in that regard.”

Local officials from League of United Latin American Citizens said a city will tear up its own communities if it gets tough on illegal immigration.

“I cannot understand how they can dictate to an apartment owner who to rent and whom not to. That is not right,” said Sally Diaz, president of LULAC Council 4353 in Arlington.

She said officials should concentrate on how to make immigrants legal, not how to make their lives more difficult.

Alberto Govea, president of LULAC Council 4568 in Fort Worth, said he might get a lawyer to look into what McElwee proposes.

“We certainly would want to first of all question his motives,” he said. “And we would want to mobilize the community to make sure we have a strong voice to oppose that.”

IN THE KNOW A campaign against illegal immigration
Community activist Dave McElwee and others opposed to illegal immigration said they will push for measures in every city in Tarrant County. He specifically wants:

Local law enforcement agencies to enter into agreements with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s program that trains and authorizes local or state law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws.

City ordinances prohibiting employers from hiring illegal immigrants.

City ordinances prohibiting landlords from renting apartments to illegal immigrants. McElwee said he will push for voter-approved rewrites of city charters if city officials won’t pass the ordinances.

We should make contact with McElwee and offer to set up a FOCUS campaign to support his efforts.

W