Patriotism!

[dsol]

I own a small apartment building, and as a loyal American, I desire to do all what I do in order to thwart terrorism and win this war.

Now the question is, since the fair housing laws seem to forbid discriminations based on national origin (which may be construed as nationality), it's difficult to screen out prospective tenants who may be terrorists from an Arabian country linked to Osama Bin Laden or whoever else that might be.

Is it legal for me to check their passports, visas, etc. as part of the screening procedure, and does the law allow landlords to contact the INS to either ascertain that the person in question is a legal alien, or to report suspected illegal aliens?

Dave

 

[Michael Wechsler]

That's a great question. Discrimination laws typically deal with arbitrary discrimination and it would seem difficult to argue that such measures are taken against a class unreasonably. Checking immigration status and other similar matters is not discrimination provided that you do so when you rent to immigrants -- which might be good practice if you are dealing with any lease longer than a month to month. (Note, squatters can cause you problems so it might be a prudent measure to do some background check on new tenants.) In this case it might warrant an exception too because of the recent events.

I'm going to discuss this particular question with the members of the New York State Bar Association and see what they have to say on the matter. There have been a whole host of new laws and issues that have cropped up regarding security and this is just one great issue that probably will be handled differently now post-tragedy.

 

[dsol]

USA PATRIOT Act

I guess my concern is if renting to a terrorist may be considered "harboring" under the new USA PATRIOT Act. In the past the "war on drugs" caused landlords to lose their properties because of the crimes of their tenants, and this pattern may continue to the war on terrorism.

I think the immigrants are ok, given that obtaining a green card requires a criminal background check. But what about exchange students? Being near a few colleges I have rented to quite a few students from China, Korea, Japan and Indonesia. I don't think I can say "no exchange students" or "no Afghan and Iraqi students" or can I?

Dave