Thread: Judge: Hazleton plaintiffs unnamed for "safety"

Judge: Hazleton plaintiffs unnamed for safety
Sunday, July 29, 2007

By Milan Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



In America, land of opportunity, an illegal immigrant can anonymously sue a city and win.

It happened last week in federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, where a judge struck down the city of Hazleton's laws aimed at evicting illegal immigrants.

Four of the eight individuals who sued Hazleton were in America illegally. All received protection from U.S. District Judge James Munley, who allowed them to bring their case against the city without being identified publicly.

Judge Munley said he had good reason to allow these four illegal immigrants to remain anonymous as their lawyers fought Hazleton's ordinances in court.

"Trial testimony indicated the intense public interest in the ordinances led at times to harassment and intimidation that created fear even among those with a more secure social and legal status than the anonymous plaintiffs," Judge Munley wrote in his decision.

Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta said the judge's decision was fundamentally unfair. People in the country illegally, he said, received protection from a court that is supposed to uphold the law.

Mr. Barletta also said he was dismayed because illegal immigrants were able to remain nameless and faceless as they joined a public trial.

"In America, I thought you had the right to face your accusers."

He said Hazleton will appeal Judge Munley's decision invalidating the immigration ordinances.

Hazleton's laws would have forced every renter to obtain a residency permit at city hall. In addition, the laws would have penalized landlords who rented to illegal immigrants and businesses that hired them.

Judge Munley found the ordinances unconstitutional, saying immigration enforcement is the job of the federal government, not mayors and city councils.

Mr. Barletta, though, said Hazleton would not have evicted anyone without first confirming his immigration status through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

He said local immigration laws were necessary because illegal immigrants were ruining Hazleton, a northeastern Pennsylvania city of 30,000 people.

Mr. Barletta says illegal immigrants are responsible for various social problems in Hazleton -- everything from crowded classrooms to increases in violent crime.

Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, was lead counsel for the people and organizations that sued Hazleton. He said the city's own records show that illegal immigrants were suspected in fewer than 1 percent of Hazleton's serious crimes.

"There was growth and prosperity in Hazleton because of Hispanics moving to town," Mr. Walczak said.

Legal immigrants, such as Jose Lechuga, who once owned a grocery store and restaurant in Hazleton, also were part of the lawsuit. Mr. Lechuga once claimed that the city's immigration ordinances created a climate of fear that drove away his Latino customers and ultimately destroyed his businesses.

But at trial, he admitted under oath that he and his wife, Rosa, were deeply in debt and their businesses were failing months before Hazleton's immigration laws were even drafted.

After Mr. Lechuga's Mexican grocery folded, another ethnic market took over the building he vacated.

Even so, Judge Munley attributed at least some of the Lechugas' business problems to the city ordinances.

Mr. Barletta said there was a simpler explanation: "Maybe the marketplace can't support five grocery stores on Wyoming Street."

The mayor said Hazleton actually saw an increase in minority-owned businesses after its laws to evict illegal immigrants were approved.

Carl Tobias, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond, has been tracking the Hazleton case. He said he did not know if factual discrepancies over issues such as the Lechugas' failed business would be of any use to the city in its appeal.

"The judge took a lot of testimony and seemed to be careful and thorough. His decision seems pretty comprehensive," Mr. Tobias said.

Hazleton's appeal to a three-member panel of the 3rd Circuit Court should take at least six months, Mr. Tobias said.

For now, the effect of Judge Munley's ruling probably will be restricted to the Middle District of Pennsylvania. A handful of towns near Hazleton approved immigration laws modeled after the one Mr. Barletta favored. All those laws were invalidated by the judge's ruling, Mr. Tobias said.



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Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1956.




http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07210/805333-85.stm

"In America, I thought you had the right to face your accusers."

You did, until the judge rewrote the law!