Proposal on Migrant Issues Will Go to Voters

Denounced by critics as racist and unconstitutional, a proposal to bar illegal immigrants from renting apartments and punish those who hire them as laborers was rejected by a divided San Bernardino City Council on Monday, setting the stage for a citywide special election on the measure.

The leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group forced the council vote after collecting 2,216 voter signatures in favor of the initiative, thrusting the city into the national spotlight as the highly charged debate over immigration reform engulfed Congress and the White House.

“It’s unenforceable, it’s a waste of our residents’ valuable tax resources, it’s a waste of our time,” said Mayor Patrick J. Morris, who says the proposal would sap money needed to battle crime and boost the city’s sagging economy.

Councilman Rikke Van Johnson, an African American who grew up in Alabama, called the proposal racist, which drew cheers from the audience packing the chambers during the four-hour hearing and debate.

“You knew who the Klan was: They paraded in sheets,” Van Johnson said after the council rejected the proposal by a 4-3 vote. In California “they wear suits, they have websites, they have initiatives.”

Councilman Chas A. Kelley, who voted for the initiative, argued that a citywide special election on the measure, expected to be held in September, would result in a “long, drawn-out, ugly political process that would drag the good name of the city through the mud.”

The voter initiative would ban illegal immigrants from renting or leasing property, subjecting landlords to a minimum $1,000 fine, and effectively ban day labor centers. Police could impound vehicles used to carry undocumented workers, and city officials could deny permits, contracts and grants to employers who hire illegal immigrants. The measure also would require city business to be conducted in English.

“There’s been a myth propagated that Hispanics, because they share the same skin color as illegal immigrants,” would oppose the plan, Joseph Turner, the proposal’s author, told the council. “It’s a fraud.”

Turner, founder of the anti-illegal-immigrant group Save Our State, last month submitted the petitions needed to force an up-or-down vote on the measure by the seven-member council -- using a rarely used provision of the city charter. With the council’s rejection, the measure automatically goes to voters on a citywide ballot.

Still, the council voted 6 to 1 to hold the special election on the initiative.

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund vowed Monday to challenge the ordinance in court. They said it was unconstitutional because it would infringe on the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration and would pressure landlords to discriminate based on ethnicity.

“It turns ordinary residents into immigration agents,” Hector Villagra, director of the ACLU’s Orange County office, told council members.

The English-only provision would also deny to some immigrants government services and the ability to petition their leaders, a breach of the First Amendment, Villagra said.

The proposed ordinance also would require the city to defend the measure in court, which could cost up to a quarter-million dollars, according to a city’s fiscal analysis. Enforcing the measure could cost between $750,000 and $1.9 million annually -- a significant hit to San Bernardino’s discretionary budget, the mayor and city manager said.

The San Bernardino Police Department would need to hire more officers to enforce the new regulations, and the city clerk’s office would be required to inspect up to 100,000 rental and leasing documents a year, the city’s analysis said.

“Burdening the taxpayers of San Bernardino with unnecessary costs simply because Washington, D.C., has a failed immigration policy makes no sense at all,” the mayor said.

UC Riverside professor Armando Navarro, a coordinator for the pro-immigrant National Alliance for Human Rights in Riverside, said immigrant-rights activists would lead voter education and registration drives in San Bernardino to vote down the measure.

He led at least 100 protesters outside City Hall, chanting “Si, se puede” and carrying signs that read “No Human Being Is Illegal.” Inside, Roman Catholic priests and social workers, in English and Spanish, told the council that the proposal would breed racism and mistrust.

In turn, the proposal’s supporters blamed illegal immigrants for packed schools, emergency rooms and jails and plummeting wages.

Construction worker Oliver Nelson, 61, said he was pushed aside for jobs because he wouldn’t work for bottom-barrel pay or because he didn’t speak Spanish.

“We should say, ‘Pack your [things] and leave,’ ” the Colton resident said outside the council chambers. “Every time they get a job, an American loses work.”

Bob Dennis, 59, a former postal worker from Riverside, drew gasps from some audience members in the council chambers when he described being hit with a tow truck driven by a neighbor he said was an illegal immigrant with no insurance.

“They have more rights than we do,” he said, his voice shaking.

San Bernardino is the latest California city to jump into the red-hot immigration debate. In the Los Angeles County city of Maywood, and Coachella in Riverside County, officials declared their municipalities immigrant sanctuaries. In Costa Mesa, the city decided to have police officers check suspected felons’ immigration status.

Officials in Highland, which abuts San Bernardino, said last week they were exploring ways to strengthen language in city contracts that bans using undocumented workers.

With Latinos making up nearly half its population of 200,000, San Bernardino provides an intriguing backdrop for hashing out immigration reform. Its voters have backed Latino politicians, including county Supervisor Josie Gonzales and Congressman Joe Baca, whose districts the city dominates; former Mayor Judith Valles, who served two terms; and Councilwoman Esther R. Estrada.

Together, San Bernardino and Riverside counties have the 10th-largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the nation, with at least 215,000 undocumented residents, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

San Bernardino leans Democratic, and voter turnout is spotty, particularly in special elections. In February, a heated mayoral runoff drew just under a quarter of registered voters.

Light turnout typically favors conservative causes, said UC Riverside’s Shaun Bowler, who teaches political science, but the proposal could have trouble gaining traction with moderate or left-leaning voters, who might find it “mean-spirited.”

Instead, the election could make San Bernardino a flashpoint for extremists on both sides of the immigration battle -- without resolving any policy issues, he said.

“There is an increasingly kabuki-style theater to all of this,” Bowler said. “It could be a circus.”