Barletta, Hazleton residents react to immigration act ban - News ...

Seven years ago, Dr. Agapito Lopez testified about how he thought a proposed immigration law would affect Hazleton.

Now that another court ruling declared the law unconstitutional, Lopez said the legal process has educated people about immigration in the city that he still calls home.

"I think this is just a learning moment on diversity and tolerance," he said. "I like the city. I'm going to stay here. I won't move anywhere. There's many, many nice people here from all ethnicities."

When the case started in 2006, Lopez testified in Scranton at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania about Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act.

The act would have penalized landlords who rented properties to people who were in the country without authorization. Businesses could lose licenses and face other penalties for hiring people unauthorized to work in the United States.

Lopez said he believed the law divided the community and infringed on a constitutional right to housing by lumping together people who looked foreign.

"Whether we're citizens or legal residents or undocumented, we all have the same face," he said.

The court ruled the law to be unconstitutional in 2008. Then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia upheld that ruling in 2010 and again on Friday after being asked to reconsider the case by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hazleton Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi wants to appeal again to the Supreme Court.

Kris Kobach, the attorney who represented the city and helped write the law, thinks the Third Circuit ruling conflicts with decisions of other circuit courts' decisions.

"It is a case that warrants Supreme Court review," he said by email.

The Supreme Court has upheld provisions of an Arizona law that required employers to use the federal service called E-Verify to check the immigration status of prospective employees. Hazleton's law protected employers who used E-Verify, and the city now uses the service when hiring workers.

Because the courts prevented the law from ever taking effect in Hazleton, Friday's ruling won't affect Hazleton as much as other areas, Lopez believes.

"It will have a big effect nationwide in Arizona and Farmers Branch, Texas, and other cities that are thinking similarly," he said.

In reviewing an Arizona case, the Supreme Court upheld a provision that revoked licenses of businesses that hired undocumented workers.

Hazleton's law strayed too far from federal law by defining businesses so that someone could be sanctioned for buying lemonade from a stand or items at a garage sale, the Philadelphia court ruled.

U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, said he has widened his knowledge of immigration by visiting border areas since being elected to Congress after leading the effort to pass the law while he was mayor of Hazleton.

He advocates protecting the southern border with fences, drones and more patrols. A Senate bill creating a way for unauthorized immigrants to become citizens, he said, offers amnesty without security.

"I do support using a physical barrier where plausible, but not as the only means of enforcement," Barletta wrote Monday in an op-ed article for The Washington Times. "We know that 40 percent of the illegal immigrants currently here did not cross what we consider a traditional border. They arrived on a visa, allowed the visa to expire, and simply disappeared into the interior of the country."

To discourage disappearances, he proposed a bill that increases penalties for those who overstay visas. Another bill that he supports would study how a 1986 law that gave citizenship to unauthorized immigrants affected wages and added to the costs of providing social programs.

Hazleton proposed its law after immigration added to costs borne by schools, the hospital and other agencies.

"We noticed that while our population had increased by 50 percent, our tax base had remained the same," Barletta wrote.

Plaintiffs who sued Hazleton, however, noted that Barletta once vowed to make Hazleton the toughest city in the country for "illegal immigrants."

"Hazleton was the first locality or state to try to drive Latinos out, and the courts have repeatedly slapped down its effort," said Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which provided legal support for the plaintiffs.

"All of the courts have said the same thing: immigration is the purview of the federal government. It's time for Hazleton - and other municipalities and states - to stop trying to harass Latino immigrants out of existence."

Jose Lechuga, a landlord who owned a store in Hazleton with his wife, Rosa, testified seven years ago that the law hurt his business and caused people without legal status to leave Hazleton.

The Lechugas have moved out of Hazleton since then.

Many other plaintiffs remained anonymous and were listed as Jane Doe or John Doe on court documents.

Landlord Pedro Lozano-Gomez, the lead plaintiff in the case known as Lozano v. Hazleton, currently resides in Luzerne County prison, where he awaits trial on charges of child pornography.

Lopez, who testified on behalf of another plaintiff, the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition, said continuing the appeal to the Supreme Court will add to the legal costs that the city incurred.

Hazleton's law is modeled after legislation proposed, but never enacted, in San Bernardino, Calif.

"They calculated the cost to defend it so they scratched it," Lopez said.

Hazleton collected donations on the Internet to help raise money for its legal defense and Yannuzzi said the city will continue to seek contributions while continuing its appeals.

Victor Perez, president of the Dominican House of Hazleton, another plaintiff, said the city has better ways to spend money than by continuing the appeal.

The president, the Senate and the House of Representatives, he noted, are seeking a new immigration law.

"We believe they are higher authorities. We believe we have to let them decide," Perez said.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com, 570-455-3636

Source: http://citizensvoice.com/news/barletta-hazleton-residents-react-to-immigration-act-ban-1.1527825

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