Making Renting to Illegals...Illegal

A Southern California town with a high percentage of Hispanics may vote to make it illegal to rent to illegal aliens:

ESCONDIDO, California (Reuters) - Local authorities in this California city are set to vote on a controversial measure on Wednesday to prohibit landlords from renting to illegal immigrants, a law opponents say is racist.

The city is the latest of several from California to Pennsylvania which have passed laws in recent months to deny access to housing or jobs to illegal immigrants in their communities.

Lawmakers in Escondido, which lies about 50 miles north of the Mexican border near San Diego, provisionally passed the measure by a 3-2 margin earlier this month following a heated debate that was interrupted by shouts and catcalls.

If approved on Wednesday it would come into effect in 30 days in the community of 140,000 residents, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.

"The federal government has failed to act on illegal immigration, so we are having to deal with it directly ourselves," said Councilwoman Marie Waldron, who proposed the ordinance.

I spend a lot of time in Escondido, and my guess would have been that the town was much more that 1/3rd Hispanic. As I was driving through there the other day I heard a radio report that if this regulation passes, the city is considering putting English lessons on local TV for the non-English speaking residents. I think that's a great idea, though if the ordinance passes, there's going to be big trouble down there.