June 22, 2010

FREMONT, Neb. — This small Nebraska meatpacking town has joined Arizona at the center of a national debate about illegal immigration after voters approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants, but an expected court challenge could keep the measure from ever taking effect.

The American Civil Liberties Union already has promised to file a lawsuit to block enforcement of the proposal roughly 57 percent of Fremont voters supported Monday.

"In a community of 25,000, it's going to be hard to take on the whole country, and it will be costly to do so," said Fremont City Councilman Scott Getzschman, who opposed the measure but said city leaders would support the results.

Fremont's vote is the latest chapter in the tumult over illegal immigration across the country, including a recently passed Arizona law that will require police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.

The Fremont measure will require would-be renters to apply for a license from the city. Officials must refuse to issue a license to applicants found to be in the country illegally. The ordinance also requires businesses to use the federal E-Verify database to ensure employees are allowed to work.

The city, which is about 35 miles northwest of Omaha, has watched as its Hispanic population surged in the past two decades, largely due to the jobs available at the nearby Fremont Beef and Hormel meatpacking plants.

The Hispanic population in Fremont, including both legal and illegal residents, surged from about 165 in 1990 to 1,085 in 2000, according to census expert David Drozd at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He said an estimated 2,060 Hispanics lived there last year.

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By MONICA DAVEY
Published: June 21, 2010

Residents of a small city in eastern Nebraska voted Monday to banish illegal immigrants from jobs and rental homes, defying an earlier decision by the city’s leaders and setting off what is all but certain to be a costly and closely watched legal challenge.

In Fremont , a meat-packing town of about 25,000 people, unofficial results from The Associated Press late Monday showed that 57 percent of voters approved a referendum barring landlords from renting to those in the country illegally, requiring renters to provide information to the police and to obtain city occupancy licenses, and obliging city businesses to use a federal database to check for illegal immigrants.

Advocates argued that federal authorities had failed to enforce their own immigration restrictions, leaving places like Fremont — with a small but growing Hispanic population — to take care of such matters themselves. They complained that illegal immigrants were causing an increase in crime, taking jobs that would once have gone to longtime residents, and changing the character of their quiet city, some 30 miles of farm fields from Omaha.

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Tossing the risk of admitting for the sake of what was surprising to me at the time, this transpired back in 1973.

My dad was in charge of a construction crew for a large company on big jobs, but couldn't hire a son to work.  I had a summer off before starting college and the option of working came up and at the pay offered for the time I quickly agreed to be a bricklayer's laborer, very hard work and the summertime was busy.  Dad would go over the blueprint at home and explain the what needed to be done and in what order.

Well, concealing my identity, for a six-pack, a social security card was somehow quickly attained in two days with a different name.  I made union wages without joining also.  When the union rep visited the site, another six-pack took care of that. 

Probably different today, but wow, too easy.  I might see tremendous abuse attainable.


Also remembering, the newly developing affluent cities had parking meters all along the streets.  Lesson one was how to "jimmie" them and never pay a dime.   Similar take on how pay phones could be used, too.       

sheeesh.