The City Council of Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb, voted unanimously to adopt a new ordinance on renting houses or apartments under which future residents must present landlords with special licenses issued by city authorities. To obtain this license, prospective renters must supply the mayor’s office with information that could be entered into a federal database to determine the applicant’s immigration status. If it turns out that the applicant is an illegal immigrant, he will not be able to rent housing.

In 2006, the City Council of Farmers Branch imposed a ban on renting housing to illegal immigrants. Last January, the ordinance was changed to include exceptions for minors, seniors and some mixed immigration status families. But a federal judge prevented the ordinance from taking effect, ruling that it does not comply with federal immigration law. This case is still making its way through the courts.

The new ordinance requires non-citizens to produce the number of any federally-issued document that can verify their legal status in the country. If the legal status of an individual cannot be verified, that individual has 60 days to produce evidence of legal status.

Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that neither her organization nor any other federal agencies have at their disposal the kind of database that the municipal government in Farmers Branch seems to want to use to determine legal status. There is, for example, a database that determines the eligibility of legal residents to receive public benefits, but some categories of legal residents – like foreign students – are not eligible for these benefits and are not included in this database.