The Omaha World Herald reports that the Fremont City Council in Nebraska will consider a 2011 budget that includes property tax hikes to help pay for the defense of the city’s recently voted-approved anti-immigrant law which imposes a ban on hiring or renting property to undocumented immigrants in the small community of 25,000 people. Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) sued on the basis that the ordinance is discriminatory. Officials have estimated that the cost of implementation, including defending it in court, will average $1 million per year. As a result, Fremont taxpayers are now facing a potential 18 percent increase in property taxes:

A proposed property tax hike to defend Fremont’s controversial immigration law is heading to the City Council. The council at its Aug. 31 meeting will consider a 2011 budget that includes $750,000 to help pay the projected annual cost of defending the voter-approved ordinance. The public will have an opportunity to comment. [...]

City Administrator Robert Hartwig said the council most likely will not vote on the proposed 18 percent increase in the city’s portion of the property tax rate until Sept. 14. If approved, the owner of a $200,000 house would pay about $116 more in taxes next year.

Fremont’s controversial ordinance was written and will be defended by the same lawyer who wrote Arizona’s tough immigration law, Kris Kobach of the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) — the legal arm of a designated hate group. Besides fluffing Kobach’s pay check, the city of Fremont will be expected to cover his travel and lodging fees, as well as outside assistance such as expert witnesses and support personnel.

Kobach, who is also running for Kansas Secretary of State, touts the role he has played in fighting ACLU lawsuits in Hazleton, PA and Farmers Branch, TX on his campaign website. However, what he doesn’t mention is the profit he has made off of the exorbitant costs associated with defending the legally questionable legislation he credits himself with writing. Farmers Branch, a small town of 30,000 people, has spent $3.2 million to repeal a federal district judge decision which deemed the town’s rental ban ordinance unconstitutional and may have to spend an additional $623,000 this year. It appears Hazleton will also be on the hook for the $2.4 million it has acquired in attorneys fees. A federal judge struck down Hazleton’s law and the city’s mayor, who “has no regrets,” predicts that costs could rise at least another $2 million if it loses at the federal appeals court level.

Yesterday, voters in Fremont, NE approved a measure which imposes a ban on hiring or renting property to undocumented immigrants. Renters will be required to apply for a license from the city and businesses will have to use the controversial E-Verify database to verify the immigration status of employees. Unlike Arizona’s unprecedented immigration law, SB-1070, that was recently passed, other localities have experimented with Fremont’s approach. And, for the most part, similar efforts haven’t just been costly and impractical, they’ve also been considered unconstitutional.

One of the first towns to enact the measures that were recently adopted by Fremont was Hazleton, PA. However, Hazleton didn’t get very far. In less than a year, a U.S. District judge dismissed the law and ruled that “immigration law is the province of the federal government alone.” However, a lot of the damage was already done. As many as 5,000 Latinos left town as shopkeepers reported that their business dropped by 20%. In 2009, Hazleton was forced to ask a federal judge to reconsider a ruling made in favor of the city’s insurance carrier that would hold the city responsible for paying $2.4 million in attorney fees incurred from the lawsuit.

The town of Riverside, NJ passed an almost identical law — but it didn’t wait for a judge to decide it was unconstitutional before rescinding it in 2007. At that point the town of 8,000 had spent $82,000 in legal fees defending its ordinance. Hundreds, “if not thousands” of residents abandoned the city, as “hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet.” A case in nearby Plainfield, NJ, hinted at how Riverside’s lawsuit would’ve likely ended had the town continued to pursue it. In reference to a lawsuit attempting to use anti-organized-crime laws to prevent a landlord from renting to undocumented immigrants in Plainfield, a federal judge ruled that “[r]enting an apartment to an alien does not amount to harboring.”

Currently, both Farmers Branch, TX and the state of Arizona are engaged in their own costly legal battles. Farmers Branch, a small town of 30,000 people, has spent $3.2 million to repeal a federal district judge decision which deemed the town’s rental ban ordinance unconstitutional and may have to spend an additional $623,000 this year. Arizona has taken its E-verify and employer sanctions law all the way to the Supreme Court. In an amicus brief filed last month, the Solicitor General wrote that the Arizona law “disrupt[s] a careful balance that Congress struck nearly 25 years ago between two interests of the highest importance: ensuring that employers do not undermine enforcement of immigration laws by hiring unauthorized workers, while also ensuring that employers not discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities legally in the country.”

While proponents of these measures argue that illegal immigration is costing local taxpayers a lot of money, chances are the questionable legality of laws like the one approved in Fremont, NE will cost them a lot more. The ACLU has already promised to take Fremont’s ordinance to court. Unfortunately the only winners of any legal battle are going to be the lawyers at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) — legal advocates who get paid to write laws that challenge the constitution and then make an even bigger profit when their work is tested in court.