This Dallas suburb could become the first city in Texas to adopt a sweeping ordinance intended to keep out illegal immigrants, a cause for concern among its large minority population.
More than 50 municipalities nationwide have considered, passed or rejected laws banning landlords from leasing to illegal immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ undocumented workers and making English the local official language.
But until now, that trend hasn’t been matched in the Lone Star State.
“This is the first town in Texas that had the guts to do what’s right,” Susie Hart, who grew up in Farmers Branch, said during a recent demonstration outside City Hall. “The education system is tanking, health care has gone through the roof, everybody is bilingual.”
Such sentiments and the proposed ordinance trouble many people in Texas, where many Latino families can trace their roots here to the era before statehood.
“This is not just a Farmers Branch problem,” Elizabeth Villafranca said of the proposal.
Villafranca, whose family owns a Mexican restaurant in Farmers Branch, said she worries that such laws will spread to other cities if the City Council approves the proposal.
The measure is expected to be submitted to the council Monday, but there was no indication when it might be put to a vote.
