Nebraska town's proposed ordinance displays small-town tensions over immigration

UPDATE: The ordinance passed, 57 percent to 43 percent, the Fremont Tribune reports.

Arizona has garnered most of the recent headlines about illegal immigration, but the issue has come to the heart of the country as Fremont, Neb., votes today on a controversial proposed ordinance. "Residents will decide whether to ban businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and bar landlords from renting to them," Monica Davey of The New York Times reports. "Residents demanded the vote, fighting off challenges by some of their elected leaders all the way to the state Supreme Court." The Fremont law was written with help of one author of the Arizona anti-immigration law.

Locals on both sides of the debate report instances of violence and threats against them for speaking out in favor of or against the proposed law. "The Hispanic population, while growing, still makes up less than 10 percent of Fremont, yet some say they blame illegal immigrants for what they see as a rise in crime here, the loss of good jobs for local residents and a shift in the culture," Davey writes. "After Fremont’s political leaders rejected an ordinance intended to keep illegal immigrants out, residents fought back and insisted, finally getting approval in the Nebraska Supreme Court to take the matter straight to voters." John Wiegert, a local supporter of the initiative, explained, "We have to start somewhere. Hiding under your desk in a city office isn’t going to help."

Fremont, a "1850s-era railroad and farming town, about 30 miles northwest of Omaha, included 165 Hispanic residents in 1990 by some estimates," Davey writes. "The number is closer to 2,000 now. No one really knows how many illegal immigrants live here, but peoples’ claims about statistics vary wildly." Dean Skokan, the city attorney, told Davey he knows of no data compiled here on crimes by ethnicity or national origin. "City officials have said the cost of fighting court challenges — presumably, claims that the law would improperly infringe on federal authority — would probably run into the millions," Davey writes. (Read more)

Cindy Gonzalez of the Omaha World-Herald reports, "At least 40 cities across the country have considered illegal immigration laws similar to the one" proposed in Fremont. "In most cases, the measures died before they got out of City Council chambers or later were repealed. Two high-profile ordinances that did advance — in Hazleton, Pa., and Farmers Branch, Texas — have yet to be enforced because they've been tied up in costly court battles for four years. So without a U.S. town that actually has gone the distance and implemented a local immigration law dealing with housing or employment or both, Fremont essentially is in uncharted territory." (Read more)

The Fremont Tribune notes that the polls close at 8 p.m. CDT and "Results of the election will be posted as soon as possible on the Fremont Tribune's website."