Bilbray is also a candidate supported by ALIPAC

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/10 ... _28_06.txt

Bilbray supports Escondido rental ban

By: DAVID FRIED - Staff Writer

ESCONDIDO ---- Add this inland city's top Republican to the list of those who support Escondido's recent decision to ban landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.

Rep. Brian Bilbray has campaigned on a platform of immigration reform and has regularly pushed for stricter enforcement of immigration laws. He said last week that he not only supports the action of one of the largest cities in the heavily Republican 50th Congressional District, he believes it sends a message to his colleagues in Washington.

"It has to be done," Bilbray said of addressing immigration ---- normally a federal issue ---- at the local level, "because the federal government has forced local governments to do either nothing at all, or do what they can, where they can, when they can."

Bilbray compared the ordinance to his efforts in the 1980s when, as mayor of Imperial Beach, he hopped on a bulldozer to divert a sewage leak from Mexico that was polluting the city's waters. His actions drew harsh criticism from environmentalists, but spurred federal officials to address the spill.

But Bilbray, who was voted into office in a June special election and is running for re-election in November, stopped short of calling the law effective local policy, characterizing it instead as a message for Congress.

"This is a cry for help from the people of Escondido to Washington, D.C.," Bilbray, R-Escondido, said in a recent interview. "There are cities across this country that are crying for help ... and this is their way of saying, 'Please, if you won't do anything, then get out of the way and allow us to try and do it.' "

Escondido is the largest of about a half-dozen cities nationwide to adopt similar ordinances.

In adopting the rental law, a majority of Escondido council members lambasted elected officials in Washington for failing to push through policy reforms that would stem the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States.

The Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based nonpartisan research organization, estimates that an average of 700,000 to 850,000 illegal immigrants come into the country each year, including people who cross the border illegally and those who come legally with visas and stay after their permits expire.

And a recent study by the American Immigration Law Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington that supports legal immigration, estimates some 42,000 illegal immigrants reside in the 50th District.

Bilbray, who also sits on the board of advisers of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based anti-immigration organization, dismissed the notion that the council's actions might reflect upon his own work in Congress.

"The immigration issue being a high-profile issue is not a reflection of me being a congressman," Bilbray said. "Me being a congressman is a reflection that illegal immigration is a big problem in this district. And that is a distinct difference."

Under Escondido's ban, the city could ask landlords alleged to be allowing illegal immigrants to live in their properties to provide documentation proving their tenants' immigration status. The city would provide the documents to the federal government for verification.

Landlords who violate the law would be subject to penalties of up to $1,000 and six months in jail for each violation.

Many Escondido landlords say the law unfairly singles out their businesses and forces them to act as enforcers of immigration law. Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have promised to file legal challenges to the law.

Asked whether he thought the city's efforts could be considered to run counter to the federal government's authority to write and enforce immigration law, as some critics contend, Bilbray said he did not believe it did.

"I never see them (critics) say anything to the sanctuary cities," Bilbray said of towns such as National City, which have declared they will not use city funds to help enforce immigration law. "At least what's going on in Escondido is where they're trying to augment the federal policy, not trying to oppose it."

However, Bilbray's Democratic challenger in the upcoming election, Francine Busby, said she recognizes that illegal immigration is a problem that affects all communities.

"But I don't think it is fair to force the burden of enforcing immigration law on the backs of landlords," Busby said, adding that solutions to stemming illegal immigration need to be addressed at the federal level, not one city at a time.

Supporting the ordinance is exactly what Bilbray should be doing, said Don McKinney, president of the Republican Club of North County.

"It's up to him to recognize that elected officials in this town in his district have made a decision," McKinney said. "I don't think what's happening in Escondido is going to be tremendously effective. But it has made a real outcry that we need to work on this issue as the number one issue of the day."

Some high-profile Republicans in the district disagree, including Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler, who voted against the ordinance and said she has spoken with many Republican and independent voters who also believe the ban was the wrong thing to do.

"I'm disappointed that he would come out in favor of it, because it's his job (to address immigration)," Pfeiler said. "He needs to be the leader in Congress in fixing this problem. And he has some excellent solutions."

Bilbray has proposed harsher penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the creation of tamper-proof Social Security cards with bioelectric information in order to verify a person's citizenship or immigration status. And comprehensive immigration reform will mean breaking some boundaries on each side of the political debate, he said.

"The extremists have controlled the immigration agenda from one side or the other," Bilbray said. "And those people that just want the law enforced and want the situation under control are not extremists. They are the mainstream of America."