March 22, 2012 – The Dallas Morning News reports that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that a Farmers Branch ordinance banning illegal immigrants from renting in the city was unconstitutional.
The decision on March 21, 2012, found that the power to control immigration rests with the federal government and not states or cities.
The appeals court judges found the ordinance was more than a housing regulation and was “designed to burden aliens, both documented and undocumented, in Farmers Branch. As such, the ordinance serves no legitimate city interest.”
Attorney William Brewer, who challenged the ordinance, said the opinion made it “clear that this ordinance was intended to discriminate against Hispanics.”
Brewer, a partner at Bickel & Brewer Storefront (now Brewer Storefront), stated that “The decision makes clear what we have contended all along – that the ordinance is unconstitutional, and that the city is attempting to interfere in an area that is clearly the province of the federal government.”
Read more here.