Thread: Debate over ordinance heats up: Hazle Twp. passes law

Debate over ordinance heats up: Hazle Twp. passes law

Wednesday, 12 July 2006
By TOM RAGAN

ragan@standardspeaker.com

Hazle Township supervisors voted 3-0 to pass an Illegal Immigration Relief Act during a special meeting Tuesday. The law establishes English as the official language of Hazle Township and establishes fines and penalties up to $1,000 for contracting with or leasing or renting to illegal immigrants.
Charles Pedri, solicitor for the Board of Supervisors, said it is basically the same ordinance the city of Hazleton passed on the first reading on June 15.
Dr. Agapito Lopez walked in seconds after the meeting was adjourned. He walked up to Pedri and asked if the illegal immigration ordinance was passed.
He was informed it was and immediately told Pedri, “You’re going to be sued. It is unconstitutional — every part of it.”
Lopez went on to say that if the township or any city or municipality is receiving federal money, it must provide bilingual documents and forms to the public.
The law passed by the township states that unless it is explicitly mandated by the federal government or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all business forms and documents relating to the township will be written in English only.
Lopez asked why an agenda he received earlier in the day at the township business office had the meeting time listed as 7 p.m. and the meeting was held at 6 p.m.
He was told that the meeting time was properly advertised and that the meeting time on the agenda sheet just happened to be an error.
Lopez said the ordinance discriminates because landlords do not know the immigration laws and Hazle Township doesn’t have police to enforce it.
When told a code enforcement officer will handle it, he asked, “Does the code enforcement officer have training to deal with the immigration law?”
“Think it over, because it’s going to be very costly for the township,” Lopez said, adding, “The landlords in this area are going to be very angry when they cannot rent their properties.”
“Most of the people coming into Hazleton are from New York City and New Jersey and are documented legally. The city is booming; the population has increased. We are already one-third of the population in the city. This ordinance is an insult,” Lopez said.
“We are going to hold a peaceful protest on North Church Street near City Hall on Thursday. Six hundred are expected to join — not anything violent. We will light candles and wave the American flag en masse for one hour prior to Thursday’s council meeting,” Lopez said.
Lopez said a candlelight vigil would also be held tonight at 8 p.m. at city hall.
Pedri told the Standard-Speaker the ordinance was properly enacted and is legal within the township code and confines of the constitution.
Bill Gallagher, chairman of the board of supervisors, said the board has discussed the ordinance for some time and Andy Benyo, the previous chairman, discussed having such a law on the books last year.
One of the problems, according to Gallagher, is that in addition to the Hispanic population, there have been many immigrants coming from Russia and Yugoslavia and it has been difficult communicating with people who do not understand or read English.
“We can only do so much. We’re not directing it at any single group,” Gallagher said. “It has been hard for our clerks at the Hazle Township office to understand people when they are filling out applications for permits and other township documents.”
When Gallagher asked for public comments prior to taking a vote on the ordinance, only one resident from Hazle Township stepped up to the podium. His question was about why more information about the people who ran businesses in the township wasn’t available to the public.
Gallagher said ownership information about a business was available during regular hours at the township office and that the township records such information.
Pedri also said several people were in the township office earlier asking for copies of the ordinance and that copies were made and are now available.

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

He was informed it was and immediately told Pedri, “You’re going to be sued. It is unconstitutional — every part of it.”

How does this joker think is "unconstitutional"?
How pathetic. What kind of citizen knowingly breaks the laws, and then has the audacity to hide behind the Constitution?

I'm sooo damn sick of hearing that.

“The landlords in this area are going to be very angry when they cannot rent their properties.”

I would think the landlords would be happy now that their property values aren't going down anymore.

Lopez said the ordinance discriminates because landlords do not know the immigration laws and Hazle Township doesn’t have police to enforce it.
When told a code enforcement officer will handle it, he asked, “Does the code enforcement officer have training to deal with the immigration law?”
“Think it over, because it’s going to be very costly for the township,” Lopez said, adding, “The landlords in this area are going to be very angry when they cannot rent their properties.”

[

This stuff ticks me off. It's as if they have studied with vigelance...every one of our laws and have spent a great deal of time finding any tiny loophole. Scoped areas out where their law enforcement is low or they are the majority and then just take over as if all the laws protecting us are null and void and the expense is too great to deal with it....so we're stuck with it. If those landlords can't rent their properties.....either the present residents trashed it or they were pig sties to begin with.

This mentality of we're just going to have to take it is going to backfire big time. Why would they as illegals who are breaking the law think they can run ruffshot over law abiding American citizens. [/quote]

Not surprising the threats of lawsuits are coming.

http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.ph ... 1&Itemid=2

Lawsuit formally threatened
Wednesday, 12 July 2006
By L.A. TARONE
tarone@standardspeaker.com
The threat of a lawsuit over Mayor Louis Barletta’s proposed Illegal Immigration Relief Act has now been made formal. Late Tuesday afternoon, Barletta received a formal notice from the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York.

The letter, signed by 11 attorneys, states it is to express their “intention to challenge the act in court.”

“We believe that the act is unlawful on a number of grounds and will be invalidated by the courts,” it states.

The letter stakes out three grounds on which the organization believes the ordinance is unlawful. The first, it states, is that it “infringes on the exclusive federal power over immigration.”

“By using immigration status as a criteria to prohibit individuals from obtaining housing, using commercial or private premises, obtaining any sort of employment, or communicating with city employees in a language other than English, the act is effectively trying to regulate immigration,” it reads. “Though the City of Hazleton may not be satisfied with the job the federal government is doing in that regard, neither Hazleton nor thousands of other cities and municipalities across this country may lawfully take on that task.”

The second legally actionable grounds, the letter states, are the “impracticality of attempting to comply with the law” on the part of property owners, businesses and employers.

“Persons subject to the ordinance cannot reasonably be expected to know which acts are necessarily prohibited and which acts are permissible under the act,” the letter reads. It adds such “insurmountable obstacles to compliance” make the proposal “fundamentally unfair and thus violative” of due process.

Thirdly, the letter claims the proposal violates the First Amendment, “as it infringes upon the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, a fundamental right that lies at the core of our democracy.”

“A resident who can better communicate in a language other than English should not be prohibited from doing so with city employees when otherwise appropriate,” it states.

“We suggest also that you consider something we believe you have ignored: all persons within the United States, including those without proper documentation, are obliged to obey our laws,” the letter reads. “They also have rights under our Constitution and federal laws.”
The letter also restates the intention “to challenge this act in court is passed.”

“If such a challenge is upheld, the City of Hazleton and you as its mayor, will be subject to injunctive relief, possible monetary damages and the payment of attorney fees and costs, both for the city’s attorneys and for the attorneys who bring challenge, which can be quite substantial in a case like this.”

The letter is signed by attorneys Foster Maer, Lee Llambelis and Jackson Chin of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, New York; attorneys Laurence F. Norton, Peter Zurflieh and Shamaine Daniels, of the Community Justice Project, Harrisburg; attorneys Witold Walczak and Paula Knudsen, American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; attorney George R. Barron, Wilkes-Barre; attorney Barry Dyller, Wilkes-Barre; and attorney David Vaida, Allentown.
The letter was sent to Barletta, city Solicitor Chris Slusser and all city council members.

Barletta said he was expecting it.

“(I’m) not surprised, not surprised at all,” Barletta said. “Obviously, they’re hoping to persuade, or scare council into backing down. It didn’t scare me and I don’t believe it will scare council either.”

“I’m comfortable that the ordinance does not violate constitutional or federal law,” Barletta said. “And I’m confident it will withstand judicial scrutiny.”

“They have a weak case in my opinion,” council President Joe Yannuzzi said. “Whether it holds up in court, we’ll see, but I don’t think so. There’s nothing unconstitutional here. There’s nothing done to illegal aliens under the ordinance at all.”

The proposal has been receiving, and continues to receive, coverage nationwide. Barletta said he has been inundated with e-mails and letters concerning IIRA. He said the overwhelming majority of correspondences have been supportive.

IIRA passed on first reading June 15 along a 4-1 vote. Yannuzzi, Vice President Jack Mundie, Evelyn Graham and Bob Nilles voted “yes.” Tom Gabos voted “no”; however, he said did so not because he opposes the intent, but because he thought the original version assigned too much responsibility to landlords.

But, as detailed in Tuesday’s Standard-Speaker, on Thursday night, council will revise the Landlords Ordinance, enacted in 2004, so that the city assumes the responsibility of registering potential tenants, relieving landlords of the responsibility under IIRA.

We knew this would happen - lawyers running right in and jumping on this big time. Communities are just trying 'to do the job the federal government won't do.'

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... 018513.htm

Posted on Wed, Jul. 12, 2006

Our opinion
Time for reflection, not hasty action, in Hazleton


TAKE A step back.

Count to 10.

Draw a couple of deep breaths.

Carefully compose your thoughts.

We offer that advice to Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, the members of the Hazleton City Council and the leaders of the city’s Latino community.

These are troubled times for race relations in Hazleton.

A controversial law proposed by Barletta and endorsed by council has brought a simmering problem to a boil.

The ordinances, known collectively as the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, would fine landlords who rent to illegal aliens, and businesses who hire them. Those are proposals worthy of calm, careful and deliberate consideration.

A third provision would make English the official language of the city, and seems to be more inflammatory than beneficial.

The same can be said of the rhetoric.

In interviews with the national media and conversations before council, Barletta implies that illegal immigrants are responsible for everything bad in Hazleton. We doubt that is the case.

And Latino advocate Natalia Gomez, in an interview with the Times Leader, compared Hazleton to Nazi Germany. That’s not true either.

Things could come to a head this week.

A vigil is set for 8 tonight at Hazleton City Hall to rally opposition against the ordinances in advance of Thursday’s city council meeting, at which council could give final approval to the new laws.

If it’s anything like last time, the public debate will be vigorous, and divisive.

We believe it’s time for cooler heads to prevail, and the coolest head of all seems to rest on the body of Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak.

Skrepenak wants to schedule a meeting to clear the air, and foster a better understanding between the races in Hazleton, and countywide.

He also wants to learn what can be done to make English language classes more readily available to Spanish-speaking residents.

That’s a great idea. We need to achieve a level of understanding and trust in order to create an environment in which constructive discussions can occur. And we need to do it now.

To underscore the potential for problems, consider this quote from Skrepenak in Tuesday’s Times Leader: “The biggest fear I have is that hostility will get to the level where someone gets hurt or killed.”

Meanwhile, Hazleton City Council could help defuse the situation.

There’s no need to pass the Illegal Immigration Relief Act this week.

The council should call a truce, a cease-fire in the war of words.

Put the act on the shelf for a month, and give Skrep a chance to schedule a public forum, and open the lines of communications.

Translators will be present. You should be, too. It’s an issue that affects all of us.

When the date is set, we hope you’ll mark it on your calendar.

And we hope cooler heads prevail.

“We are going to hold a peaceful protest on North Church Street near City Hall on Thursday. Six hundred are expected to join — not anything violent. We will light candles and wave the American flag en masse for one hour prior to Thursday’s council meeting,” Lopez said.
Lopez said a candlelight vigil would also be held tonight at 8 p.m. at city hall.

Hmmm, is 600 hundred all the can round up out of a population of 31,000? Remember, this is small city America - everyone knows what is going on. Personally, I don't think 600 protesters show much support for the opposition.

Hazelton is doing the right thing to protect its citizens, now if only the federal government would protect the rest of us!

How can they sue, if they are here illegally?? They have no civil rights, they don't fall under the fair housing act because they are not citizens of this country.
They try to use the "national orgin" as an excuse, but one would think that would only apply to a "legal" Immigrant's "orgin".

If they feel Hazleton is a Natzi Germany why do they want to continue invade there?

They make me sick, they are forever comparing themselves to Our History to which they are no part of, or know nothing about!
Just so they can try to gain sympathy and further their causes. First they compare themselves to Blacks, Slavery, and The Civil Rights Movement, and now they are talking about Natzi Germany.

They call us racists, they won't learn our language, they won't abide by our laws, so if they feel there are so mistreated.... why don't they go back home where they came from ???