http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... 434454.htm

Posted on Sun, Sep. 03, 2006

About 300 rally against Hazleton crackdown on illegal immigrants


Associated Press

HAZLETON, Pa. - About 300 people, many of them from Philadelphia and other parts of the state, rallied Sunday in opposition to the city's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Those attending, some carrying signs bearing slogans such as "We The People Includes Everyone" and "The Only People Who Weren't Immigrants Are Native Americans," did not march or chant but listened to speeches from religious and civic leaders.

"This ordinance does not include only Latinos," organizer Dr. Agapito Lopez told the crowd. "Many people who are not Latinos will be without jobs if this becomes law."

Hazleton, a city of about 31,000 residents, approved one of the toughest laws of its kind in the United States on July 13, imposing $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, denying business permits to companies that give them jobs and making English the city's official language.

The city on Friday agreed to delay enforcing the law after the American Civil Liberties Union and Hispanic groups filed suit, calling the ordinance discriminatory and unworkable and saying it would foster discrimination against Hispanics who have come to the country legally. Mayor Lou Barletta said the city is working on a replacement ordinance that he believes will better stand up in court.

Four busloads of people came from Philadelphia, and the crowd included representatives from the Latino Coalition of Monroe County, the Latino Coalition of the Lehigh Valley, Jobs With Justice of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition.

Lopez estimated that only about a third of the crowd was from the Hazleton area. He said he would have preferred a higher local turnout, but the holiday weekend and the poor weather kept people from coming.

The Rev. Miguel Rivera, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leadership, said members were there to support people working on farms and in plants just a few miles away who did not come, fearing arrest by immigration authorities.

"We are here for what is just and what is moral," Rivera said, who also spoke to the crowd in Spanish.

Rabbi Michael Michlin, of Hazleton's Beth Israel Temple, quoted the Torah's admonition to "love the stranger" but said neither side of the debate should be considered evil.

"The issues involved in immigration are enormously complex and I do not know of one particular thing to do," Michlin said. "Is it any wonder that when one community tries to fix what we have ignored as nation, there is more hurt?"

"This is why we live here - to be united," said Anna Arias, president of the Hazleton Area Latino Association. "We do not want division. We do not want to be separate. We want to be the same as everybody else."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information from: Standard-Speaker, http://www.standardspeaker.com