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Ahead of vote, mayor tweaks plan
Tuesday, 11 July 2006
By L.A. TARONE
Hazleton City Council will deal with a slightly revised Illegal Immigration Relief Act when it meets Thursday night.

The changes, as written by Solicitor Chris Slusser and proposed by Mayor Louis Barletta, are relatively minor. They include an additional penalty for businesses hiring illegals, along with several clarification and definition clauses.

Council will also consider changing the existing Landlord Registration Ordinance, enacted in 2004, in conjunction with the immigration act.

However, none of the modifications change the ordinance’s main scope.
The additional penalty is for businesses caught hiring illegals for a second or subsequent time. The original proposal had a blanket five-year loss of business permits to operate within city limits, and/or the cancellation of any contracts with the city. The revised ordinance retains the five-year penalty for a first offense, but adds a 10-year penalty for subsequent offenses.

“The intent is to show how seriously the city will take violations of this ordinance,” Slusser said. “The 10 years for repeat violations indicates the city is very concerned about businesses which aide and abet illegal aliens.”
As with the original, the clause pertaining to businesses also covers parent firms and/or subsidiaries of firms who hire illegals anywhere.

But its definition clause adds that the provision is aimed at any business “that employees, retains, aids or abets illegal aliens or illegal immigration into the United States, whether directly or by or through any agent, ruse, guise, devise or means, no matter how indirect….”

It defines “aids or abets” as the hiring or attempted hiring of illegals “providing, renting, or leased real or rental property…” to illegals or “funding or providing goods and services” to illegals, except in the case of emergency medical needs.

The other significant change is made to the 2004 landlord’s ordinance, though it is connected to the illegals ordinance. The 2004 ordinance will be changed so the Code Enforcement Office does the background checks on potential tenants and issues a permit. The one in place has the landlords doing it.

“What will happen is if someone comes to a landlord looking to rent property, he’ll tell him, ‘I can’t rent to you unless you get a permit,’” Slusser said. “Then, the landlord will direct the prospective tenant to City Hall, where the city will check the documentation and, if it’s satisfactory, issue a permit.”

Slusser said the change was the result of “negotiations with HALO,” the Hazleton Area Landlords Organization.

“Checking documentation is beyond what most landlords can do,” Slusser said. “So, the city is willing to carry this responsibility.”

Barletta said the change in the landlords ordinance makes the Illegal Immigration Act more enforceable in that it holds landlords responsible if they “knowingly” rent to illegals.

If the city is checking, Barletta said, all landlords have to do is ask the potential tenant for the city permit and they wouldn’t be “knowingly” renting to an illegal. If the documentation showed the city was false, the landlord would not be held responsible.

The revised ordinance also contains a definition of the term “illegal alien.” It states the term, “means any person whose initial entry in the United States was illegal and whose current status is also illegal as well as any person who, after entering the legally, has failed to leave the US upon the expiration of his or her visa.”

The revised ordinance still contains three severability clauses. It states the ordinance shall not “be construed as to prohibit rendering emergency medical care.”

Elsewhere, under the official English clause, it states the ordinance is in effect “unless explicitly mandated by the federal government (or) the states of Pennsylvania….”

Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act mandates some services and documents be provided in foreign languages – this clause merely confirms the city will abide by it.

The final severability clause is Section 7, which states, “if any part or provision of this chapter is in conflict or inconsistent with applicable provisions of federal or state statues, or is otherwise held to be invalid or unenforceable by any court of competent jurisdiction, such part….shall be suspended and superseded by applicable laws…”

Both Barletta and Slusser feel the changes make the ordinance stronger and more easily defensible against any of the expected lawsuits challenging it.

Slusser disputed the notion, offered by critics, that the city was trying to enforce immigration law – a federal purview rather than a municipal one.
“This is not in any way an attempt to deal with federal immigration law,” Slusser said. “I can understand how people might think that, since the word “immigration” is in its title, but this is simply meant to prevent people from hiring and renting to illegals. If it said, ‘Before entry in the US, you have to do X, Y and Z,’ then it would be, but it doesn’t do that. This is not immigration law.”

Barletta said the ordinance does not target illegals for any penalties or repercussions.

“The penalties in this ordinance are all for legal American citizens,” Barletta said. “And really, it doesn’t stop anyone from hiring an illegal or renting to one; but they will pay a penalty if they’re caught.”
Slusser also vehemently disputed, as some critics have charged, that the proposal is aimed at Hispanics who moved to town within the past few years.

“The big problem is that people are generalizing what it says without bothering to take a minute to read it,” Slusser said. “So, there are claims it violates the supremacy clause in federal law, or is anti-Latino. None of that is accurate.”

Slusser pointed to the definition concerning visa overstays.