Unsafe Harbor: An Analysis of Local Government Use of Harboring Ordinances to Restrict Illegal Aliens’ Access to Housing

This article is an analysis of the use of “harboring” ordinances to restrict illegal aliens’ access to housing. In particular, we analyze the promulgation of harboring statutes in the communities of Valley Park, Missouri and Escondido, California in the context of social justice. Our thesis is that the promulgation of harboring laws by local governments frustrates our country's ability to build a cohesive and consistent national policy towards the provision of shelter to illegal aliens. When local governments legislate in this area, we find that at least three major problems arise: (1) there is an increase in the number of disparate rules in this policy domain, thus frustrating the construction of a cohesive national policy scheme; (2) this leads to an increase in the opportunities for disparate interpretations of laws modeled after a federal law; and (3) there is the potential for the creation of unintended deleterious effects on the access to housing by illegal aliens. As such, we make a number of associated recommendations to address these problems.