Homer Township Passes Resolution Declaring English as the Official Language

Homer Township, Ill. - Homer Township may be small, but leaders there are taking a big stand against illegal immigration. They passed a resolution supporting English as the official language.

That means the agendas and minutes from township meetings will only be printed in English, and all activity in the assessor's office will conducted in English exclusively.

Township Clerk Steve Balich said it's a symbolic stand in support of Arizona's attempt to battle illegal immigration.

"In Homer township we don't have an immigration problem, that I know of, but you have to start somewhere and so we're starting here," Balich said. "And if other places see what we're doing, maybe they'll have the courage to stand up and do the same thing."

Balich said he plans to take his resolution to Lockport, Plainfield, Homer Glen and New Lenox, asking officials there to pass a similar resolution of their own.

The measure also calls for school districts to enforce residency rules, which District 33-C in the township says it already does.

Balich said he is not calling for any new laws, just that the laws that are now on the books be upheld.

But if he was looking for immigration law enforcement from Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas, whose officers patrol the unincorporated area, he's out of luck.

"We're not getting in the middle of that, period," Kaupas said.

If the ideas behind the resolution sound very much like Tea Party rhetoric, that's because Balich is very active in the movement in Will County. But he says the idea to take this stand was his.

"I'm only saying enforce the rule of law that exists on the books now, so if the people that want to make things up and lie and try to demonize me want to do it, so be it," he said. "I'm not on a witch hunt."