Manassas Ordinance Raises Cries of Bigotry

"I'd like to think that in 2005, surely these things wouldn't happen for the wrong reasons," said Rabbi Bruce Kahn, executive director of the center, which requested the investigation. "But my work tells me otherwise."

Kahn pointed to a similar case about 10 years ago in Waukegan, Ill., where the local government passed an ordinance restricting households to a husband and wife, their children and no more than two relatives. The Justice Department sued the city for attempting to limit the number of Latinos living in Waukegan. The ordinance was revoked and the case settled for $175,000.

Manassas Mayor Douglas S. Waldron (R), City Manager Lawrence D. Hughes, City Attorney Robert W. Bendall and several council members have not returned numerous calls seeking further comment on the ordinance, the latest in a string of attempts by municipalities across the region and nation to use their limited powers to deal with problems they associate with illegal immigration.

"It's sort of a balance, and frustrating to everybody, of trying to walk that tightrope, of not being discriminatory and also not encouraging the settling of illegals into a community," said Mark Flynn, director of legal services for the Virginia Municipal League and a former Winchester city attorney.

The Manassas ordinance was modeled after one adopted last year by Herndon, which in turn looked to ordinances in Boulder, Colo., and Tacoma, Wash., as models, said Richard Kaufman, Herndon town attorney.

The Herndon ordinance is less restrictive than the one in Manassas, and includes aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins in its definition of family.

Kaufman said that the town researched the rule for two years and was mindful of three U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the subject: one dealing with group homes, another dealing with the Fair Housing Act and especially the 1977 East Cleveland case.

"The Town Council studied very carefully the city of East Cleveland case and read the language that described the degree to which the Supreme Court would allow one to regulate family relationships," said Kaufman, who declined to comment on the Manassas ordinance. "That's the highest authority we have."

Kaufman said that in Virginia, municipalities do not have the authority to establish occupancy limits, which are set by the state's uniform building code.

Municipalities do have land-use authority, however, and it is under that authority -- zoning -- that Herndon restricted its definition of family, he said. Thus, in an indirect way, he said, the town could affect occupancy limits.

In Manassas, a suburban town of 40,000 that is about 72 percent white, 15 percent Latino and 13 percent black, the ordinance is the latest step officials have taken to combat problems they associate with people assumed to be illegal immigrants.

In October, Waldron asked Gov. Mark Warner (D) to declare a state of emergency in Virginia with regard to illegal immigration, suggesting that doing so would make the state eligible for federal homeland security dollars.