Residents of Fremont, Nebraska, want to keep undocumented immigrants out of their tiny Midwestern city, even if it means excluding them from private housing.
So why is everyone so testy about illegal immigration? There are a couple of reasons.
The city — home to just 26,000 people — might not have a large foreign-born population. But it has seen a bit of a demographic shift in recent decades.
That doesn’t excuse intolerance — plenty of cities experience demographic change gracefully — but it can help explain tensions.
Fremont’s law targeting immigrant renters was drafted with the assistance of Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state.
Kobach (R) is one of the brightest minds fighting against illegal immigration. You may know him from immigration measures such as Arizona’s SB 1070 (the so-called “show me your papers” law) and Alabama’s HB 56 (what some considered “America’s harshest immigration law”).
Each of the laws share a common objective: to make conditions for immigrants so harsh that they want to leave the town, city or state where they’re residing. Kobach considers himself a backer of “self-deportation,” which, in his view, “is simply the idea that people may comply with the law by their own choice.”
Kobach and fellow opponents of illegal immigration have a broader reason for supporting the Fremont law: if a case like that can make it to the Supreme Court, it could set a favorable precedent for other local immigration laws.
3. Lack of Information
Residents don’t know enough about the law and the value of immigration to their community, according to Becky Gould, the executive director of Nebraska Appleseed, a non-profit social-justice organization.
“We’re a state that is losing population, that has an aging population,” she said. “New people coming to our towns and communities is a part of what will help Nebraska thrive over the long term.”
Gould points to other Nebraska towns that have experienced a similar influx of Hispanic residents, but not reacted with restrictive laws.
Drive an hour and a half to the city of Crete, and you’ll find a different scenario. The public school there, she says, touts multilingual programs that aim to help Spanish-speaking families.
While a voting majority in Fremont may support the restriction on rentals, Gould says not all residents feel that way.
“I want to emphasize that I think the results of the elections don’t reflect all of the amazing folks that are trying to take the community of Fremont in a different direction,” she said.
Ted Hesson was formerly the immigration editor at Fusion, covering the issue from Washington, D.C. He also writes about drug laws and (occasionally) baseball. On the side: guitars, urban biking, and fiction.
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