A Dallas-area city will pay $1.4 million to end its defense of a failed ordinance that would have banned immigrants living in the U.S. illegally from renting apartments.
The Dallas Morning News ( http://bit.ly/1jQs6US ) reports that the Farmers Branch City Council on Tuesday approved paying the mediated legal fees of plaintiffs.
Lawyers for critics of the 2008 measure, which was never enforced, had sought more than $3 million in the yearslong dispute that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices in March declined to hear an appeal from the city.
Farmers Branch leaders spent more than $6 million on immigration-related lawsuits and other efforts while trying to ban those living in the U.S. illegally from renting property.
Within days the campaign raised nearly $35,000 from more than 600 people in 14 countries. The money will help Fleming afford a place to live and food to eat as well as get him on his feet while he looks for a job. “I think people recognize that donating a little they can help this person integrate back into society and build a life for himself that was wrongly taken away from him,” he said. “People are good. There is some bad out there but most people are good.” On Monday, Fleming and Sutaru met for the first time. “I want to thank you, man, I really do, I want you to know that, it really means a lot that you did this for me,” Fleming said. “You’re a wonderful man to do this for me. I appreciate it.” “People, you know, I never thought they’d do this for me,” he told ABC News. “I look at things really different now, I really do, I look at things real different.”
Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com