A Dallas suburb has repealed its English-only ordinance after years of legal wrangling over a voter approved prohibition on renting property to illegal aliens.
Farmers Branch city council last week voted to scrap the 2006 ordinance, a move dubbed by its mayor as heralding in a “new day” that was “welcoming” and “inclusive.”
The rental ordinance as approved one year later.
“It brought multiple legal battles and several years and millions of dollars to the court system that ultimately ended up with the U.S. Supreme Court saying they weren't going to hear the case,” says Mayor Robert Dye.
“With 11 years with this on the books not one other community stepped up to do the same thing, so you have to take a hard look at that and ask is what we're doing the right thing?”
Opponents of the ordinance called it a "black eye" against Farmers Branch.
“English as the official language was the last piece of anything that linked us to that ordinance that was still on our books,” says Dye. “It was a move to separate us from that to say we are officially past this.”
Regardless of the ordinance, Dye says the state requires them to translate public health and safety information anyway.