Law protects immigrants from unlawful landlord conduct

For several years, a Los Angeles landlord tried to force his tenant in a Boyle Heights rent-stabilized apartment to pay an illegal rent increase. The tenant, a single mother living with her son, had been a good tenant during those years, but as an undocumented immigrant it took courage along with help from a local advocacy group to stand up for her housing rights. She successfully fought off every attempt.

However, for the landlord's April 2017 attempt, he had a new tactic, one that exploited her immigration status. He told her that if she didn't agree to the rent increase, he would call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and get her deported.

She was not alone:

• An Oakland landlord unlawfully locked his tenants out of their home and then threatened to call ICE if they tried to reenter.

• A Central Valley landlord threatened to evict a married couple unless the wife would have sex with him, telling them that they were powerless to do anything to him since he could report them to ICE.

• A San Mateo property manager tried to unlawfully raise a domestic violence victim's rent, threatening to call ICE if she didn't agree to the rent hike.

• A Redwood City landlord attempted an illegal eviction and forced the tenant to give up her right to fight it in court when he threatened to call ICE.

These unscrupulous attempts at deportation extortion occurred in what continues to be a period of new challenges and tremendous anxiety for the immigrant and undocumented members of our California community. Along with rampant anti-immigrant rhetoric on the federal front, last year ICE announced an aggressive policy that puts all undocumented immigrants at risk of detention and deportation, whether they have a criminal history or not. Raids, arrests, detentions and deportations have since increased, and some of the secondary consequences of the waves of detentions, such as the children left behind or detained themselves, are even harder on immigrants.

For the members of any immigrant household in California, where there is already an acute housing crisis, these changes make life more difficult and even harrowing. Fortunately, landlords' conduct preying on such vulnerability is as unlawful as it is reprehensible. State law -- enforceable by public prosecutors, nonprofit organizations and private lawyers -- now provides protection.

In 2017, Assemblyman David Chiu cited the cases above when he introduced Assembly Bill 291 to prohibit such conduct. With the support of over 30 organizations including the Western Center on Law & Poverty, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law last October as the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act. The ITPA imposes specific rules against such extortion. The law also includes a strong enforcement regime. The new protections, which complement existing fair housing protections, are similar to those that immigrants have in the employment context.

The ITPA (codified for the most part with amendments at Civil Code Sections 1940.05, 1940.2, 1940.3, and 1942.5) prohibits a landlord from several types of exploitation based on a person's immigration or citizenship status. Under the law, immigration or citizenship status includes the following:

1. a person's actual immigration or citizenship status;

2. a perception that a person has a particular immigration or citizenship status; or,

3. a person is associated with a person who has, or is perceived to have, a particular immigration or citizenship status.

The third type of status includes a tenant's family members or friends, even if they do not live in the unit. The breadth of the definition includes immigrants who are documented but fear the loss of their status or fear harm to their undocumented friends and family members.

The types of landlord conduct now prohibited include the following:

• asking tenants about their immigration status.

• threatening to disclose immigration status of anyone in unit or anyone associated with tenant in an attempt to induce tenants to move out.

• threatening to report or report immigration status in retaliation for complaint.

• evicting based on anyone's immigration status (along with the prohibition, a new defense is now added for evictions.).

• reporting tenants' suspected immigration status.

Historically, landlords have always found themselves on thin ice under fair housing laws the moment their criteria for tenants veer from the traditional markers of a good tenant such as income, credit history, eviction history, and past convictions. These specific prohibitions make clear that immigration status is off limits as an issue for applicants or tenants. The only ITPA exception for such inquiries or disclosures occurs when a federal law requires it. However, these situations would be very rare -- even in the case of public or subsidized housing, it is the local housing authority that screens applicants.

For remedies, the ITPA provides for the tenant's actual damages in the event of a violation along with injunctive relief and possible punitive damages. It also requires the court to notify the district attorney of a potential violation of specified laws relating to extortion. For the specific violation of disclosing immigration status to ICE or other government agencies for the purpose of harassing tenants or trying to get them to leave, courts must order the landlord to pay statutory damages in an amount to be determined in the court's discretion that is between six and 12 times the subject monthly rent.

For attorneys, the ITPA erects one flashing red light and then a few green lights. The law amends the State Bar Act to prohibit attorneys from threatening to report suspected immigration status of a party to a civil or administrative action. For example, on behalf of a landlord in an eviction, rent control matter, or habitability case, the attorney faces possible suspension or disbarment if he or she participates in a threat to report the tenant to ICE.

For attorneys who want to assist immigrant tenants, there are at least two opportunities. The first is a fee-shifting provision so that attorneys can get their fees from the landlord if the attorney helps their client prevail in an ITPA action. The right to attorney fees for a prevailing tenant, along with all other rights afforded under the ITPA, cannot be waived.

The housing crisis and the new, aggressive immigration enforcement have created a perfect storm of vulnerability for immigrant tenants. In recognition of the stark reality that most immigrant tenants will be hesitant in these circumstances to put their name on a lawsuit, the ITPA authorizes nonprofit advocacy organizations to have standing as plaintiffs and bring actions for injunctive relief under these provisions.

That new standing might be the most important opportunity that the ITPA provides to attorneys, to offer to do pro bono work for such organizations. Realistically, ITPA actions by nonprofits, along with those by public prosecutors, provide the best chance for continued enforcement of these new rights.

For more information on these issues, contact the Western Center on Law & Poverty at (213) 487-7211.