Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

A federal judge Wednesday struck down a Farmers Branch ordinance designed to block apartment rentals to most illegal immigrants.

And he refused to rule on the constitutionality of a later ordinance, which the city's attorneys designed to overcome legal issues related to the first.

U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay issued a permanent injunction barring the city from implementing Ordinance 2903, which voters approved 2-to-1 in May 2007.

But the newer version of the effort, Ordinance 2952, remains and is slated to go into effect 15 days after a final judgment is issued on Ordinance 2903.

Though the judge Wednesday issued his opinion, he has not technically issued the final ruling, which an attorney for the city said would wrap together all the rulings in the case.

When it does come, it's likely to trigger a flurry of activity in the courts, as attorneys who sued the city over Ordinance 2903 try to keep Ordinance 2952 from taking effect.

Judge Lindsay said in a summary judgment - without allowing the case to go to trial - that Ordinance 2903 was unconstitutional.

He declined a request by the city to issue a summary judgment finding Ordinance 2952 constitutional. In that opinion, he criticized the city, saying the new law was an attempt to circumvent his earlier, preliminary, findings that 2903 was unconstitutional.

Ordinance 2903 would have required apartment managers or owners to obtain and maintain evidence that tenants are U.S. citizens or legal residents.

But Judge Lindsay said only the federal government may determine if someone is in the country legally. He said the city, rather than deferring to the federal government's determination of immigration status, created its own classification scheme for determining which noncitizens could rent an apartment.

"Because Farmers Branch has attempted to regulate immigration differently from the federal government, the Ordinance is preempted by the Supremacy clause," Judge Lindsay said.

Numerous proposals by the city to revise the law, as submitted to the court, failed because they would have required the court to essentially redraft the measure, something Judge Lindsay said is not the court's job.

Ordinance 2952 differs from 2903 in that the city government, using a federal database, would be responsible for determining a prospective tenant's status. Also, it would apply to rental houses, as well as apartments.

Judge Lindsay said the city "put the cart before the horse" in asking for an opinion on the newer ordinance when it has not drawn a legal challenge.

Parties on both sides said they weren't surprised by the ruling - which echoed Judge Lindsay's decisions in issuing first a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against Ordinance 2903.

"Obviously, it's disappointing in many respects," said City Council member David Koch, who was elected in May 2007 largely because of his support for Ordinance 2903. "No. 1 is the people's will, and people's decisions, and people's wishes once again get ignored and overturned."

Mr. Koch said the ruling wouldn't deter the city from moving forward. That's likely to come in the form of an appeal.

"We will continue to fight and do what it takes to make sure that the laws of the land are enforced and the wills of the people are abided by, whether it's in Austin, Washington, or in the courts," Mr. Koch said.

Newly elected Mayor Tim O'Hare, who as a council member was the driving force behind the efforts to drive illegal immigrants out of the city, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The ruling came as testimony concluded in an unrelated lawsuit in which three Hispanic residents are trying to force Farmers Branch to elect City Council members by district rather than citywide.

The three contend that the current, at-large system dilutes the voting strength of Latinos. Although Farmers Branch was 37 percent Hispanic at the time of the 2000 census, the plaintiffs say history has shown that a Hispanic cannot win a Farmers Branch election.

They contend that if the city were divided into districts, one with a Hispanic voting majority could be created, increasing the chances that a Latino could win a council seat.

"All they want is to be able to elect a candidate of their choice," plaintiffs' attorney Rolando Rios said.

Bob Heath, an attorney for the city, said federal law requires those who want to force such a change to show that they can draw a district in which a majority of the voting-age U.S. citizens are Hispanic.

"The problem in Farmers Branch is they cannot," he said. "The Hispanic community cannot draw a Hispanic citizen voting-age majority."

Ruben Rendon, who lost a May 10 council election, testified that a pervasive negative attitude toward Hispanics has developed since the city began trying in 2006 to ban renting housing rentals to illegal immigrants.

He said that while he was working at a polling place during the May 2007 election, an Anglo woman criticized him for helping a voter by speaking in Spanish. He also cited the removal of Spanish-language programs from televisions at the city's recreation center and white Anglo opposition to the prospect that a Hispanic-oriented Carnival store might fill a vacant grocery building in the shopping area at Valley View and Josey lanes.

"It got so bad, my wife told me she wanted to move out of Farmers Branch," said Mr. Rendon, who instead ran for office.Farmers Branch officials have said their ban on renting apartments to illegal immigrants is aimed not at Hispanics but at people of any ethnicity who violate the country's immigration laws.

Much of the testimony in the voting rights case focused on how the plaintiffs determined the Hispanic citizen population of their proposed district, which is east of Interstate 35E and north of Valley View.

Both sides largely used a list of registered voters with Hispanic surnames.

Norfleet W. Rives, a senior lecturer at Ohio State University, said plotting those voters' addresses on a map showed there were too few to create a Hispanic voting majority in the proposed district.

But Richard Gambitta, director of the Institute for Law and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at San Antonio, testified that some Hispanic-surnamed registered voters were not on the list and that adding them would create the required majority.

Both sides acknowledged that - because of marriage, for example - not all Hispanics have traditional Latino surnames and not everyone with a Hispanic surname is Hispanic.

It is unknown how long U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Dallas will take to issue a ruling.