The Lesson of Farmers Branch, Texas

Writing at Townhall, Dallas Morning News columnist Bill Murchison is quick to remind us that the leasing ordinance passed by Farmers Branch Texas is not a "nativist" reaction:

I wouldn't advise anyone's coming down too hard on the voters of Farmers Branch, Texas, who last weekend approved, two to one, a measure that bans the leasing of apartments to illegal immigrants.

Which -- don't we all know it? -- sounds like a nativist slap at hardworking folks who just want to get on in the world. Yes, and who happen to be living in violation of the laws of the country in which they are trying to get on.

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It's "nativist" to expect general adherence to democratically enacted rules? I don't think so.

What kind of rules, then? Maybe the one saying you don't get to come and live here absent some prior arrangement with the U.S. government. Saying you ask permission before barging in.

What kind of rules, then? Maybe the one saying you don't get to come and live here absent some prior arrangement with the U.S. government. Saying you ask permission before barging in.

I have gotten more than my fair share of heat both personally and professionally for my stance on illegal immigration. I have been called heartless and cold (even by my wife), I have been told I hold the people who clean the bathroom at work or mow the grass in my neighborhood in contempt and I have even been told that I am (get this) un-American for my views on illegal immigration.

But, I am a lawyer, duly sworn by the state of Maryland to abide by the rule of law. We have laws regarding immigration and working in this country. I work side by side with some of the most gifted computer programmers I know, many of them from outside this nation. But all of them worked very hard and expended significant sums to come work in this country and I welcome them. I don't hold immigrants in comtempt, I hold law-breakers in contempt.

The fact that our government, at all levels, routinely accepts, coddles, even "encourages" illegal immigration simply angers me. Governments are creatures of law, institutions that generate the law that governs our daily lives. Why then should we accept laws in other areas of society as legitimate when one major area of the law is so blithely discarded by the very institutions that created the law, enforce the law and demand that we follow the law?

It seems to me that the legitimacy of the rest of the laws can logically be called into question.

The fact that Farmers Branch's ultimate law-making body, its citizenry, decided that enough was enough is not nativist, but very American. This tiny community has decided that it will abide by the rule of law, a law duly constituted for them.

Well done.