In immigrant-heavy neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, community groups have seen a marked uptick in landlords exploiting immigration fears to threaten tenants since the election. Unscrupulous landlords who threaten to call immigration authorities on undocumented tenants are not a new phenomenon, but, as first reported at CityLab, there appears to be a growing trend across California of landlords capitalizing on immigration fears to illegally raise rents or evict tenants.
From the CityLab link above:
Navneet Grewal, senior attorney at the Western Center on Law & Poverty, says that threats about immigration status are not just increasing in number—they’re also growing more intimidating. A landlord’s attorney asking for a tenant’s immigration status during a deposition hearing in a rent dispute, for example, in which immigration status should have no bearing. Nonprofit legal-aid agencies throughout the state are reporting eviction threats from landlords who cite President Trump by name, she says.
“What we used to see is, when there was a building of folks who had habitability concerns, you’d see things like a landlord threatening to report the building to ICE,” Grewal says. “What I hear from people now, there is an attitude of, ‘Why go through the eviction process when I can just call ICE to do the sheriff’s job?’”
I fully intend to take as many of these humanoid leeches w/ me as I can when I go. My self-defense trigger finger itches already. Which is not to say I'd be above slitting a few property-owning throats.
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