Escondido Settles Rental Ban Lawsuit

The City of Escondido Settled the lawsuit against its rental ban ordinance.

According to a statement issued by the City, problems revealed during litigation included "the lack of an assured federal database to determine the status of individuals for housing purposes."
http://www.escondido.org/immigration/index.html

Cost was another major factor.

It is apparent that the ACLU's strategy is to over-litigate against any local jurisdiction that attempts to pass a rental ban. That way, should a local jurisdiction eventually lose, it is punished by having to pay on the order of $1 million of the ACLU's attorney's fees. They home that no jurisdictions are willing to continue the litigation when faced with those risks.

Other jurisdictions are continuing the litigation. That litigation is being tracked at:
http://www.ipress.info/

Reasons For This Blog

This is a branch of my Escondido blog (esco1.blogspot.com) which deals with issues in Escondido, California. For much of last year, the blog focused on the future of Palomar Medical Center in downtown Escondido. This year, the issue of illegal immigration came to the forefront of life in Escondido. First, large marches of students were organized protesting Congressional action to tighten security along the border with Mexico. Then an ordinance was introduced to ban landlords from renting to illegal aliens. The ordinance was passed, and that measure is now tied up by the Federal courts. Since the issue of illegal immigration is much larger than the City of Escondido, this separate blog was created.

It appears that an epic battle over illegal immigration is in the works. On one side are the current administrative and judicial branches of the Federal Government which turn a blind eye to the local problems of illegal immigration. On the other side are the States and Cities which are seeing growing poverty concentrated in areas settled by illegal aliens. Congress sits in the middle, passing laws to address the problems, but failing to adequately fund the enforcement of those laws.

Long forgotten by the United States and the States is Article 1 Section 10 Clause 3 which states: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, . . . engage in War, unless actually invaded . . . .

The treaty power and the uniform naturalization rule appear to be the only ways that the Federal Govenrment can limit the local power to police the current wave of foreign nationals after they illegally cross the borders of the United States.