ACLU of Virginia Approves Lawsuit Challenging Manassas Ordinance That Limits Right of Family Members to Live Together
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Widespread Opposition is Seen to Policy That Undermines Families and Targets Minorities
RICHMOND, VA -- The America
Civil Liberties Union of Virginia today announced that it will support a legal
challenge to a City of Manassas ordinance that prevents aunts, uncles, nieces,
nephews, great-grandparents, or great-grandchildren from living together as
family unit.
"No one is saying that Manassas can't reasonably regulate the
number of people living together for health and safety purposes," said ACLU of
Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis, "but the government has no right to
tell me that my aunt or nephew can't live under the same roof with
me."
Manassas city officials have stated that the purpose of the ordinance is
to cut back on illegal immigrants, but the ACLU said that the ordinance is an
unconstitutional government infringement on the right of family members to live
together and that it is being used to target families based on their
nationality.
Many civil rights and civil liberty organizations have
expressed outrage over the ordinance. The ACLU of Virginia says it expects to
work with other groups, both local and national, to eliminate the
policy.
"This is not only a frontal attack on families in general, but more
particularly on minority families," said Willis. "Under the pretext of fighting
illegal immigrants, the City of Manassas has declared war on its Latino
population, because that is who is bearing the brunt of this
ordinance."
Under the Manassas ordinance, a "family" is, "Two or more persons
related to the second degree of collateral consanguinity by blood, marriage,
adoption or guardianship.... living and cooking together as a single
housekeeping unit, exclusive of not more than one additional nonrelated
person."
In short, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, and
siblings can live under the same roof, but aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews,
great-grandparents, or great-grandchildren are not considered "family."
In
1977 in the case of Moore v. City of East Cleveland, the United States Supreme
Court struck down a similar ordinance. That ordinance permitted only the
parents and children of the head of household, and one child of the head of the
household, their spouse and dependent children to reside together.
The Court held that the restrictive definition of "family" violated the
substantive due process clause of the Constitution, noting that the protection
of family relationships extended beyond the nuclear family.
In his decision, Justice Lewis Powell, Jr. wrote, "The tradition of uncles, aunts, cousins, and especially grandparents sharing a household along with parents and children has roots equally venerable and equally deserving of constitutional recognition."