Escondido, CA: Law stops renting to illegal immigrants

[valkyrie]

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

Maybe it arises out of a duty not to assist someone in committing an illegal act?

I just made that up, but it sounds good to me.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Maybe it arises out of a duty not to assist someone in committing an illegal act?

I just made that up, but it sounds good to me.

There are many laws that the gov't can't enforce without citizens' assistance.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

I also wonder how far they are taking the liability on this. If they're asking for ID cards, etc as proof of legal status, many illegals have pretty dang convincing fakes.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

Meh, I think you're misstating your terms here . . . we could just as easily parse this as "Can anyone provide a compelling reason why teachers should have a role in enforcing child abuse laws?" due to their mandatory reporter status - or we could flip the phrasing, and say that landlords are now charged with ensuring their dollars are coming from a legitimate, legal source, upholding the law of the land w/re: their own income.

It's a fine line, and ultimately the semantic argument doesn't hold much water - the reality of the situation is that modern immigration reform, which essentially requires 'band-aids' over existing gaps, probably means removing easy supply-side enabling of aliens. Landlords who rent to illegals are certainly enablers, although not on the same level as, say, employers.

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I also wonder how far they are taking the liability on this. If they're asking for ID cards, etc as proof of legal status, many illegals have pretty dang convincing fakes.

I just wanted to note this - this is simultaneously the biggest reason for and against what I've discussed above. Faking documentation always has happened and always will - that's another area to attack, but it definitely means that checking more stringently in other areas for things like doubled SSN/etc. can only serve to actively attempt to seek out aliens.

[SoCalGirl]

Public school teachers are government employees...so I have no issue with requiring them to help enforce laws.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by SoCalGirl

Public school teachers are government employees...so I have no issue with requiring them to help enforce laws.

Those same laws apply to private school teachers. So the fact that they're government employees is not a controlling factor here.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by SoCalGirl

Public school teachers are government employees...so I have no issue with requiring them to help enforce laws.

Forest/Trees

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws?

Good point.

[Eclipse]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

I am not sure if I can come up with a 'compelling' reason, but the government expects private businesses and individuals to do the same thing when they make it against the law to hire people not eligible to work in the US. I think the mindset is if a person does not have a job or a place to live what benefit will they receive when coming here?

Unfortunately, just like the laws regarding hiring illegal immigrants has not stopped some people from employing them, there will be a subset of folks who will still rent cars to them.

Here's an interesting article from Sunday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/sh..._1022_COX.html

One quote:
This is the issue that could make her and other Arizona voters hypocrites, says Vicki Oligmueller.

Illegal immigrants "totally are ripping off" Phoenix-area hospitals, getting care without paying for it, she says. Plus, too many of them haven't learned English or they drive without auto insurance, she says.

But then Oligmueller confides that most of the people who work on her and her anesthetist husband's yard, maintain their pool and clean their suburban home are from south of the nearby Mexican border and don't speak English.

"Here we say we don't want them to come over and they are wrecking our hospitals, but we're all using them," says Oligmueller, a flight attendant who usually votes Republican.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why landlords should have a role in enforcing U.S. immigration laws? RC kind of touched on this, but I'm not convinced. Isn't this a case of the government being too lazy/incompetent to do its job and enforce its laws -- or, in the alternative, a futile attempt to do the impossible?

Government does things like this all the time. For example, employers have to help enforce the tax and social security laws by withholding employee contributions from paychecks and remitting them to the IRS. Merchants have to collect and remit sales taxes, even though the merchants are not the ones paying the sales taxes. It's not a matter of laziness or incompetence; it's a matter of allocation of resources and of who is in the best position to ensure compliance with the laws.

[Rudey]

Good. California could use less traffic and crimes and these landlords are just like the drivers of "Get away cars". Leave all that on the other side of the border.

-Rudey