Thread: City's immigration law turns back clock

http://www.latimes.com/news/printeditio ... &cset=true

City's immigration law turns back clock
Latinos leave Hazleton, Pa., in droves in the old coal town's crackdown.
By Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer
November 9, 2006

HAZLETON, PA. — The changes came bit by bit to Hazleton this fall.

One morning Rich O'Brien woke up and his neighbors across the street were gone. For the first time in memory, William Sernak, who farms in a town nearby, could not find enough workers at harvest time. And Amilcar Arroyo has watched as the wire transfers sent from his store dropped from $700 a day to $200 to $50.

Nearly four months have passed since Hazleton's City Council approved an ordinance designed to make the city, in Mayor Louis J. Barletta's words, "one of the toughest cities in America for illegal aliens." Although the ordinance has not taken effect, it has had its desired result: Barletta has no statistics, but guesses that as many as 5,000 Latinos may have left town.

"Some in the middle of the night," he said. "You would suspect they were illegals that left so quickly."

Though that estimate seems high, some changes are apparent.

Suddenly, there is quiet on Wyoming Street, where young Latino men once milled in the evening. Shopkeepers there say their business has dropped by 20% to 50% and two businesses have shut down. The shift has turned the clock back in Hazleton, an old coal city of 30,000 that had attracted about 10,000 Mexicans, Dominicans and other Latino immigrants over the last decade.

O'Brien, a truck driver, has watched the change with deep satisfaction.

"The drug dealers are starting to leave town," said O'Brien, 61, a longtime resident. The street is "better empty than full of drug dealers and murderers and thieves."

Barkeep Maurice Umbriac, 70, noted that some of the immigrants were good people. But he could see O'Brien's point: "People keep complaining the businesses aren't doing well over there, but what kind of business do you want?"

Since the law passed July 15, Hazleton has become the test case for a new sort of immigration overhaul: the local crackdown. The Illegal Immigration Relief Act would impose penalties on landlords or employers who allow undocumented immigrants to live or work in the city.

More than 30 cities and towns, including Escondido, Calif., have considered or passed ordinances based on Hazleton's. Most are waiting to see whether the law withstands court challenges by civil rights groups, which argue that local governments have no right to regulate immigration. A U.S. district judge last week granted a temporary restraining order to stop enforcement of the Hazleton law, which was to have taken effect Nov. 1. Barletta said he expected the case to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Hazleton's heyday 70 years ago, coal miners from Italy, Czechoslovakia and Ireland streamed through the streets at the end of their shifts. But coal and textiles collapsed, and by 2000, the population had declined to 23,000, with a median age of 40. The Latino arrivals — many of them from New York and New Jersey — opened 50 businesses downtown and boosted property values.

With the arrival of families from larger cities, though, crime in Hazleton began to change, said Police Chief Robert Ferdinand. There had always been a drug trade in Hazleton, but it became more brazen, with "a certain cold-bloodedness to it that we had never seen before," he said. The 30-man police department was overwhelmed, he said, and people began to worry.

"Worst-case scenario, as crime continued to increase and violent criminal activity continued to increase, the remaining decent people would leave the city and leave it to the criminal element," Ferdinand said.

Anger had built up to a point that startled Father John Ruth, assistant pastor at St. John Bosco Roman Catholic Church, north of Hazleton. In July, Ruth decided to preach against the law, and for the first time in his career, he got anonymous hate mail in response. Worshipers took him aside to argue with him, and fellow priests disapproved.

"They are angry," Ruth said. "There is a sense of anger and fear and frustration overall."

Sernak, who farms corn, hay and vegetables in the nearby town of Weatherly, ran into more concrete problems: The law prompted the Sernaks' usual crew of Mexican workers to leave the area.

Sernak advertised in the local newspaper, and recruited 15 young people. They were not "fit to work," he said.

"We don't realize how hard it is to go out in 80-degree weather and try to pull weeds in the sun," said Sernak, 47. "Most people couldn't last one day. Most people didn't last till lunch."

Sernak sympathizes with Barletta's complaints: His Czech relatives all learned English, he said. But his troubles this season were so severe, he said, that "we don't know if there will be a next season." His father, Henry, 79, rode by on a small tractor. He had a question: "What will this country do without those people?"

Well the title of the article should read.

City's immigration law set the clock right.

I wonder how much the farmer is willing to pay locals to pull weeds? Isn't there another method of destorying the weeds such as a machine?

Originally Posted by swatchick

I wonder how much the farmer is willing to pay locals to pull weeds? Isn't there another method of destorying the weeds such as a machine?

it's called 'RoundUp'

Sernak advertised in the local newspaper, and recruited 15 young people. They were not "fit to work," he said.

sooo locals are willing, but you find them "unfit".... a**hole

these farmers just want cheap labor..at the cost of americans way of life...maybe they should lose everything....

That's not a family farm, it's an agra business. These huge farms are in it for major profit.

Dixie

He had a question: "What will this country do without those people?"

I'm sure this was a common statement when slavery was abolished!