Renting to illegal migrants: 2 views
By ELIZABETH LLORENTE, STAFF WRITER | 08/24/08 02:02 AM

Should states get involved in regulating it?

Several New Jersey communities are among those nationwide that have proposed measures to outlaw renting to illegal immigrants.

Most such tries have failed because local governing bodies have withdrawn them in the face of costly legal challenges, or judges have deemed them unconstitutional. But the issue of renting to illegal immigrants still simmers.

Those who favor penalizing landlords who knowingly rent to illegal immigrants say federal laws treat such rentals as "harboring" -- akin to giving sanctuary. They say it should be considered tantamount to aiding that tenant's violation of immigration law.

"Renting to illegal immigrants is aiding and abetting," said Ron Bass, founder of the Linden-based United Patriots of America, an advocate of stricter immigration enforcement. "Everyone who is in the country legally has a right to have a roof over their head. But people who are here illegally need to go home, to their country."

But civil rights groups and advocates for immigrants argue that immigration is a federal matter and states have no business regulating it. They also point to the inevitable complications.

"How would a landlord determine who is documented and who is not?" asked Miguel Rivera of Hackensack, president of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which has rallied to protest such measures. "Landlords do not have the ability to evaluate immigration documents. This would lead to racial profiling -- it will target minorities; it is racist."

The effort to penalize landlords is one of the latest moves by town officials who fault the federal government for failing to deal with illegal immigration's local impacts. They cite crowds of day laborers seeking work and crowding in homes and schools.

Some 500,000 illegal immigrants are believed to live in New Jersey, and 12 million in the country.

New Jersey towns that have drafted the rentals ordinances include Riverside, Freehold, Bound Brook and Middletown. The laws, which have been rescinded or struck down in most cases, typically call for fining landlords about $1,000. In June, a national group that favors strict immigration laws sued a Plainfield property management company, claiming it encourages illegal immigration by renting to a large number of undocumented immigrants.

The suit by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a legal arm of the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, has attracted nationwide note by citing the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). RICO is normally used to prosecute organized crime or large-scale immigration violations such as human smuggling.

Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello, who wants his local police federally deputized to enforce immigration law, said his town's aggressive efforts to fine landlords who allow crowded conditions -- a common problem among undocumented immigrants -- have led to a reduction of such violations.

"Enforcement efforts make landlords decide to stop violations," Cresitello said.

But undocumented immigrants say they shouldn't be run out of town -- because the community depends on them.

"We're working in those communities where we rent," said an undocumented Guatemalan factory worker in Palisades Park who asked to remain unidentified. "We're buying in those businesses, paying sales tax, paying the landlord's property taxes through our rent -- we're contributing to these communities."

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com
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