http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/15323358.htm

Farmers Branch to consider illegal immigration measureAssociated Press
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas - A city councilman wants to follow the lead of other towns by making it tougher for illegal immigrants to live and work in this Dallas suburb.

City Councilman Tim O'Hare blames undocumented immigrants for much of the city's problems. He wants the City Council to consider prohibiting landlords from leasing to illegal immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ undocumented workers, making English the city's official language, ceasing publication of any documents in Spanish and eliminating subsidies for illegal immigrants in the city's youth programs.

"The reason I got on the City Council was because I saw our property values declining or increasing at a level that was below the rate of inflation," O'Hare said. "When that happens, people move out of our neighborhoods, and what I would call less desirable people move into the neighborhoods, people who don't value education, people who don't value taking care of their properties."

Advocates say adopting such an ordinance would be racist.

"I'm sure the Statue of Liberty must be crying right now, knowing some of our subjects in this great democracy of ours are conjuring up to make life more miserable for those who are here trying to eke out a living, contributing to our great country through their sweat and tears, only looking for what our forefathers were looking for when they came here," said Hector Flores, immediate past national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

City council members were scheduled to discuss the tough immigration-related measures on Monday, but no formal decision would be made at the meeting.

The provisions to be discussed echo a strict illegal immigration ordinance passed by Hazleton, Pa. last month. That city's ordinance inspired nearly a dozen other local governments throughout the nation to consider their own laws targeting illegal immigration.

The ACLU, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and other groups filed a lawsuit challenging Hazleton's ordinance. The suit contends the ordinance is discriminatory and unworkable. It also said the Constitution gives the federal government exclusive power to regulate immigration.

Farmers Branch Mayor Bob Phelps said he fears the city could get sued if the measures O'Hare wants are enacted.

"We have a council member or two that want to push this, but I don't think now is the time," Phelps said. "Until we get some clear understanding of what can be done, or what the United States is going to do, it's hard for us in Farmers Branch, being a little town of 27,000, to do anything."


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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com