When a Summerville, S.C., town councilman decided to take on the federal government’s lack of action on illegal immigration, he didn’t know two apartment associations would weigh in on the fight.
Victoria Cowart, CPM, president of the South Carolina Apartment Association, said she was “alarmed and frightened” when the councilman proposed an ordinance last summer requiring apartment residents to obtain occupancy licenses to rent a dwelling. That meant that landlords would need to verify a rental applicant’s legal status. Illegal immigrants would face eviction, and landlords allowing them to remain would be subject to fines.
Landlords were not “asking to rent to illegal aliens,” Cowart told the town council. “We’re not asking to do anything illegal. We’re simply asking not to be turned into Homeland Security.”
Cowart and Charleston Apartment Association (CAA) President Marysa Raymond argued that the ordinance would push people from Summerville, harming rental property owners. Cowart also pointed to the current cases and the cost of those cases to cities that have passed such legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union promised legal challenges to Summerville estimated to run more than $1 million a year.
Cowart, a NAA Board member, said her strategy involved reaching out to council members, eventually meeting with Councilman Bob Jackson, who had voted for the ordinance on the first reading.
“He let me walk through the entire bill and explain the impact on the apartment industry. It would add an unreasonable burden of more regulations in an already heavily regulated industry. We wouldn’t know what to put or not put in a lease,” she said.
Both the South Carolina and the Charlestown apartment associations showed up in force for the ordinance’s final reading in September. Jackson switched his vote and Summerville’s mayor cast the tie-breaking vote to table the ordinance that included the rental requirement. The town council eventually approved a less controversial ordinance that requires businesses to determine the immigration status of employees.
Council’s deliberations on the original ordinance, considered one of the most restrictive in the nation, were heavily covered by local, state and national news media. Recently, Cowart was featured in an article in the “National Journal” reporting on how states and localities are creating a patchwork of immigration policy because of the federal government’s inaction.
“If we had not been there it would have passed,” Cowart said. “I used the strategies I learned at NAA’s Capitol Conference,” where NAA members participate in industry forums and legislative briefings before going to Capitol Hill to advocate to their members of Congress. “I learned firsthand that you can make a difference.”
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