Tuesday night’s council meeting had an update on what the city is doing to combat illegal immigration.  The specifics are on pages 158 on in the linked PDF.  Here’s the Summary:

•  Carrollton and Farmers Branch are the only two cities in Texas who have registered with 287(g).  Both cities have told Lewisville that the CAP program Lewisville uses is more effective.
• Lewisville recently requested to be part of a new ICE program called Operation Community Shield.  I’ll have more on this in another post.  Looks promising.
• Lewisville is focusing on the ‘demand’ or employer side of the equation.  Much easier to enforce and provides equality under the law.  Putting a spotlight on employers skirting the law is, in my opinion the best way to reduce illegal immigration.  No money, no incentive.  Of course the only law that’s enforceable is traffic violations when soliciting in the roadway.  Anything else is on private property.
• One property owner in the Huffines area has expressed interest in filing complaints about the activity on their private property.  This migh help, but there are several property owners that would have to voluntarily comply to remove solicitation from that area of town.
• On the legal front, the city attorney has recommended spending $7,500 to have a constitutional attorney explore ways that staff may not have come up with to reduce illegal alien activity in Lewisville.  City staff have been unable to find a way, including several citizen ideas that wouldn’t immediately cost the city hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in litigation over the past several years.

I’m excited to see the city discussing what they’ve been doing for the past couple of years.  Unfortunately, if people aren’t involved or actively looking for this information, all they see is the eyesore and this kind of information needs to be easier to obtain.

The staff and council seem to be covering the bases and even be going above and beyond by retaining external services to ensure our taxes are spent responsibly.

Personally, I’m glad we’re addressing the business side of this equation, it protects our businesses from unscrupulous competitors and still protects legal citizens who might resort to day labor as a way to make ends meet in these tough economic times.