Thread: Barletta: Hazleton won’t enforce immigration law

http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.ph ... 8&Itemid=2

Barletta: Hazleton won’t enforce immigration law
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
By L.A. TARONE
tarone@standardspeaker.com
Don’t expect city officials to go breaking into businesses demanding green cards in enforcement of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act.

Mayor Louis Barletta said the city has no such intention.

Following City Council’s passage of a slightly revised IIRA Tuesday night, William Walker of West Hazleton asked Barletta how the ordinance will be enforced once it passes second and third readings.

"We cannot and will not enforce immigration law; that’s the federal government’s job," Barletta said. "So, if ICE (the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) visits a plant and takes out employees as illegal, the city will follow up."

In those instances, Barletta said, city officials would visit the business involved and start asking questions about how it hired an illegal and whether it "knowingly" did so. If the city determines it did, the loss of business license would take effect.

Similarly, city officials would also determine whether anyone involved in the above-mentioned ICE raid rented property. If so, officials would visit the landlord, or apartment manager or agent and make a determination as to whether the apartment was "knowingly" rented to an illegal.

If so, the landlord would be assessed a $1,000 fine for each day for every illegal on the premises.

"The landlord would have the permit on file for every tenant," Barletta said. "So he would be able to produce one if we asked."

He said the reason the city took on registration – rather than have landlords do it, as the original 2004 ordinance called for – was that it has access to more information channels to verify someone’s immigration status.

"That’s why we have the city issuing the permits; it takes the burden off landlords and also eliminates things such as racial profiling," Barletta said.

Watch them start to trickle then flood back in now......

If the feds would do their jobs and deport any and all illegals, the Hazlton officials wouldn't need to worry about that.
They could simply enforce their laws with the cooperation of the feds (yeah right) and get things done. That would send a message to illegals.

So the city will only get involved after ICE makes inspections. Correct me if I am wrong.

byw, just today rec'd an email from Mayor Barletta requesting donations to help with their legal fund due to the recent suits being brought against the city.

Jean,
Same here. I posted mine up here.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=38064

Watch them start to trickle then flood back in now......

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Hazelton probably felt they needed to make a few adjustments to tweak their original ordinance to better enable it to stand up to scruitny in the forthcoming lawsuit. Mayor Barletta has already shown his true colors ( ), he plans on doing what is necessary to rid his community of illegal immigrants.

Originally Posted by sippy

Jean,
Same here. I posted mine up here.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=38064

Thanks sippy! Right after I posted here I saw your other post of the mayor's email. So much info flies around on these boards.

I, too, feel Mayor Barletta is on a roll and will do whatever he can to help protect his city. He has to be careful, of course, because we all know how the thousands of 'groups' out there are waiting to make legal cases against such cities.