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Fremont Nebraska Ordinance Bars ILLEGAL Immigrants from Holding Jobs and Renting Property : Illegal Immigration as a Consequence of NAFTA is a Large Problem in the USA

By Andis Kaulins

NOTE! Please note that this is not a xenophobic commentary. The LawPundit was himself a legal immigrant in Nebraska 60 years ago and was always well-treated in that State. The issue here is illegal immigration.

Fremont, Nebraska (population ca. 25,000) is in the legal news - see this New York Times video, but first, a bit of local color, highlighting the special character of Fremont, which is not just your ordinary U.S. "small town".

Fremont is also home to the Fremont Lakes State Recreation Area, visited by nearly 1 million people per year (ca. 40 acres land, 300 acres water and 20 lakes). In my youth, growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, I spent some glorious recreational weekends in Fremont, camping, boating, water-skiing, fishing, picnicking, swimming and sunbathing. Fremont was a part of a proverbial recreational paradise. No crime, no locked doors, no problems.

All that has changed in Fremont in recent years as the result of the omnipresent business greed of American and Mexican companies and the ill-advised NAFTA agreement, which devastated the indigenous agricultural industry in Mexico, putting millions out of work, leading to an outflow of more and more cheap labor to the United States, with an attendant influx of illegal immmigration.

It is very important in this context to recognize that America itself is responsible, through NAFTA, for much of its current immigration problem.

In Fremont, the influx of cheap labor has particularly marked the meatpacking industry, which is a big business in neighboring Omaha and its environs, as the "beef industry" not only generates a top-ranked $12 billion to the Nebraska economy (more revenue than "corn"), and in fact ranks tops in the nation in commercial red meat production, yes, even ahead of the Longhorn State of Texas. The Omaha Stockyards particularly have traditionally "attracted large numbers of immigrant families" to the Omaha area and to the related area industries, long before the current influx of legals and illegals from Mexico.

Fremont is in any case currently feeling the influx keenly, as its Hispanic population, e.g., has increased from 165 Hispanic inhabitants in 1990 to 2,060 last year.

Economically and politically, the bottom line in Fremont has seen profits for a handful of big companies on the one hand and crime, the need to lock doors, and many other attendant problems for its legal residents, such as unemployment, on the other hand. Once again, a self-appointed greedy few are raking in the chips and the rest are paying the tab.

As now reported in all the media, e.g.

Monica Davey, New York Times, Nebraska Town Votes to Banish Illegal Immigrants
Michael, W. Savage, Washington Post, Two federal lawsuits target Nebraska town's ordinance on illegal immigrants

Fremont residents have started to fight back by passing an ordinance in a special election last month which, effective July 29, bars illegal immigrants "from renting property or being hired legally". The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as well as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund have filed suits against Fremont, whereby the ACLU is inter alia seeking an immediate injunction to stop the ordinance on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

As written at USA Today:

"Some Fremont residents, such as Clint Walraven, said the measure is not racist but simply intended to ensure that legal residents who are unemployed get the few available jobs in the city of 25,000.

"We all have to play by the same rules. If you want to stay here, get legal," Walraven said."

"The Lincoln Journal Star analyzed the race:

While Osborne captured populous Omaha and Lincoln, Heineman sealed his victory in rural counties and key population centers in western and central Nebraska?s critical Republican battleground....

...it was the political impact of two gubernatorial vetoes that appeared to lift [Heineman ] into a late surge, especially in Osborne?s congressional district.

Heineman?s opposition to Class I rural school reorganization and the granting of resident college tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants cut into Osborne?s support. [emphasis added by LawPundit]

Osborne declined to sign referendum petitions seeking voter repeal of the rural school legislation and said he would have signed the resident tuition bill." [1]"

This is NOT a problem that the courts can solve, by the way, regardless of how the ACLU lawsuit fares. The federal government must legislate and enforce immigration measures that protect its citizens and legal residents, otherwise you will ultimately have ethnic battle conditions on "the dark fields of the Republic". When it "no longer pays" to be an illegal immigrant in the USA, illegal immigration will stop. Similarly, NAFTA should be substantially amended to protect American industries. NAFTA was Clinton's greatest blunder and is the direct cause of much of today's illegal immigration to the United States from Mexico.

Full post as published by LawPundit on July 22, 2010 (boomark / email).