By DAVID FRIED
Federal immigration officials said this week they have no programs in place
that could help the city support the ordinance.
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But there may be a hitch to that plan.
As it stands, the federal systems available to verify immigration documents are
not set up to provide such information for cities making general inquiries.
Under the rental ban that the City Council passed this week, landlords alleged
to be violating the law will be asked to provide immigration documents for the
tenants in question. The city will pass those numbers along to the federal
government, which will verify the Social Security numbers or other
documentation for the city.
Only if the federal immigration officials say the documents are not valid will
the city step in and require landlords to remove the tenants or face penalties,
including fines of up to $1,000 and six months in jail.
The ordinance, passed by a 3-2 margin, goes back to the council on Oct. 18 for
a final vote and would take effect 30 days later.
Currently, local and state agencies can check the immigration status of
individuals through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, a
computer-based process that returns almost instantaneous responses in most
cases. The program is run by the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services
agency.
But the program is available only for agencies that need to verify a person's
immigration status before it provides housing assistance, food stamps or other
public benefits that are off-limits to illegal immigrants, according to Sharon
Rummery, a spokeswoman for the immigration service.
"As of right now, we don't offer that (general service) for cities or
landlords," Rummery said. "It's not part of our program. We are
exploring expanding that."
Whether inquiries related to rental matters will be provided remains to be
seen, she said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative branch of the
Department of Homeland Security, handles requests from law enforcement
agencies, but does not verify status of individuals for local governments or
employers, according to an agency spokeswoman.
City Attorney Jeffrey Epp said the verification agency that the city will use
and other specific enforcement details will be "developed in the
implementation" of the ban, and will not be ready for the council before
the next meeting.
But the verification system is key to the
The entitlement verification method operated by federal immigration officials
was created as part of a major overhaul of the country's welfare programs in
1996, and has been used ever since.
For example, public housing agencies regularly use the system to verify
citizenship or legal residency from applicants for Section 8, the federal
government's cornerstone subsidized housing program, according to the Fair
Housing Council of San Diego.
The federal agency also provides a similar verification service for employers
who register for the federal program and want to verify the immigration status
of people they recently hired.
But allowing government agencies and employers to search an individual's
immigration status for unauthorized purposes could be determined as violating that
person's privacy, according to other immigration officials.
Rummery said she did not know if the current policy for verifying immigrant
status was based on privacy issues, but added, "we're always very
sensitive to the sanctity of private information, because we (the agency) are
subject to the federal Privacy Act."
The 1974 privacy law limits what information the government can collect, how it
can be used and who has access to it.
Landlords say they are also at a loss as to how
For a fee, San Diego County Apartment Association offers landlords background
checks that include credit reports, criminal record and rental history. And for
no charge, landlords can also check an applicant's name against a list of
individuals suspected of financing terrorist activities that the U.S.
Department of the Treasury maintains.
But that's about all landlords can do right now, according to Robert Pinnegar,
executive director of the apartment association, a trade group representing
2,800 property owners and managers throughout the county.
"It's not that we're opposed to doing these searches," Pinnegar said.
"We do them every day. But there's no current database (available) to
search for this information."
Contact staff writer David Fried at (760)
740-5416 or dfried@nctimes.com.