TRO Entered to Halt Farmers Branch Rental Ordinance

The Dallas Morning News (here) reports that a day before the city planned to start enforcing an ordinance banning apartment rentals to most illegal immigrants, a federal judge put a temporary stop to the plan, ruling that it “conflicts with federal law.” Legal experts said the ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay signals that the ordinance may face trouble in federal court despite Farmers Branch voters’ overwhelming approval of it May 12. Federal courts have issued rulings stopping other cities from implementing similar laws. Judge Lindsay, in a 20-page ruling granting a temporary restraining order, said Farmers Branch had wrongly used federal laws governing who receives housing subsidies to write its ordinance and had created its own classification system for determining which noncitizens may rent an apartment in the city. Download villas_fb_52107.pdf

KJ