Thread: Proposal polarizes Hazleton

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06/18/2006
Proposal polarizes Hazleton


By Nichole Dobo


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Staff Writer

HAZLETON — It’s the coffee shop chatter. It’s the park covered in graffiti. It’s the Hispanic boy who won’t stop asking if he has to move away.

In Hazleton, it’s hard to escape the illegal immigration debate. The city’s mayor has proposed an ordinance that would ban illegal immigrants from renting property, fine businesses that “aid or abet” them and make English the “official” city language.

“A lot of people are very angry about it,” said 17-year-old Catherine Bisono as she worked in her family’s Hispanic market.

Besides creating tension in the community, it’s very likely Mayor Lou Barletta’s ordinance, if passed, would be challenged in court for violating constitutional and civil rights, several legal experts said.

“Laws like the one the mayor has proposed exasperate the problem, said the Rev. Craig Mousin, an immigration law scholar at DePaul University.

Even illegal immigrants have basic rights while they are in the United States, said Paula Knudsen, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. The proposed ordinance likely violates constitutional and civil rights laws, she said.

“You are not entirely stripped of your rights, regardless if you are less than a citizen or an illegal immigrant,” Knudsen said.

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The possibility of a legal challenge does not deter Barletta, who believes it is the “right thing to do.” Illegal immigrants are breaking the law, he said, crime enough for the city to make an arrest.

“Those people don’t live here. They don’t know what I am dealing with,” the mayor said of outside criticism. “I am not going to change my mind for people who believe what I’m doing might not be politically correct.”

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Angela Campbell and Mallisa Simms watch their children climb the monkey bars and fly in the air on the swing set.

Just a few months earlier on the street next to the playground, a man was shot dead in the middle of the day.

The women agree something needs to be done about illegal immigration. Just what, they aren’t sure.

The mayor and many residents point to high-profile crimes as reason to crack down on illegal immigrants.

In the last few months, a man was gunned down, a 14-year-old fired a gun at a park and there was a large drug bust. All these crimes were committed by illegal immigrants, Barletta said.

“We never had this before they came here,” he said. “This is a family town with conservative values. I am dealing with elderly people who are afraid to leave their homes.”

The mayor could not provide the exact percentage of crimes committed by illegal immigrants. He did say the percentage of crimes committed by Hispanics has gone up — as has the city’s total Hispanic population.

Crimes committed by Hispanic residents has increased 162 percent since 2000, according to data from the Pennsylvania Unified Crime reports. During the same time period, the city’s total Hispanic population has increased nearly 700 percent, according to the Census and the mayor’s estimate of the number of new Hispanic residents.

Non-Hispanics were responsible for 79 percent of the city’s crime in 2005, according to data from the Pennsylvania Unified Crime reports.

It’s unfair to blame all Hazleton’s problems on the Hispanic community, said 18-year-old Cynthia Valerio, an honors graduate of Hazleton Area High School. She took offense to the portion of that mayor’s ordinance that claims “illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates.”

“We are not all the same,” she said. “Just because I am Hispanic does not mean I am a criminal.”

Immigrants, in general, are much less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, a 2006 study of U.S. prison populations by a group from the University of California shows. The study found that immigrants actually have the lowest rates of imprisonment for criminal convictions.

The idea that immigrants commit more crimes than others “flourishes in a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance where ‘terrorism’ and ‘losing control of our borders’ are often mentioned in the same breath, without any evidence to back them up,” according to the study.

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The windows of Francis Tucci’s salon are filled with miniature American flags.

Inside the shop, Tucci emerges from the back, stopping at a counter decorated in red, white and blue.

His reaction to the mayor’s ordinance is typical of longtime residents.

“It’s about time,” said Tucci, who has been a business owner here for 36 years. “I’m very happy something is going to be done, but it’s sort of like closing the barn door after the horse ran away.”

The business section of the ordinance would fine for-profit entities if they hire, “aid or abet” illegal immigrants. Landlords would be fined for “knowingly” renting to an illegal immigrant.

Those sections of the law, along with the landlord section, are so broad almost anyone could be charged with violating the new ordinance, said Mousin, the immigration law expert.

There are many questions about how the ordinance would apply to businesses and landlords because it is written very vaguely, Mousin said.

For example, Mousin wonders: Is the company that brings milk to the high school “aiding and abetting” illegal immigrants by delivering to children who may be here illegally? Is an airport or bus station “aiding and abetting” if it brings an illegal immigrant to Hazleton?

“Every landlord in town should say this is nuts,” he said. “… The Chamber of Commerce should be up in arms.”

The president of the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce said she is not worried about the ordinance affecting businesses.

“Personally, I am not getting any calls regarding the issue from businesses,” said Donna Palermo. “As long as you are here working legally, you are always welcome in greater Hazleton.”

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Inside the historical society building, it is strangely quiet compared to the afternoon bustle outside on Wyoming Street.

Jean Gormley, president of the historical society, said she has no problem with immigrants who want to come to Hazleton in order to “try to work hard and do their best.”

Hazleton is seeing its first real immigration wave since the coal boom era, when the Germans and Italians came, followed by the Irish and the Slovaks, Gormley said.

Illegal immigration is a problem, but Gormley said she is not sure it can be solved locally.

“On the local level I don’t think we can do much,” the life-long resident said. “It’s really a national issue.”

Trying to enforce federal immigration law at the local level is troubling for several reasons, said Knudsen, of the ACLU.

Local law enforcement is not trained or authorized to enforce federal law.

“Immigration law is really complicated,” she said. “And how could you possibly expect the police to also stem the tide of normal community crime?”

Police should also be concerned that the ordinance would hamper efforts to solve crimes, Knudsen said. If the only witness to a crime is an illegal immigrant, and that person fears he will be arrested after talking to police, he may be unwilling to help.

“It doesn’t lead to good policing,” she said.

Barletta said the city can’t wait for state or federal law enforcement agencies to deal with the city’s immigration troubles.

The community wants this ordinance to pass, Barletta said. The city’s ills are best addressed by actively removing illegal immigrants from the city — even if he has to tap the local police to do it, he said.

“I am dealing with this here and now,” he said. “We are trying to deal with it the way we have to.”

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If you are in America, speak English, Rocco Chicalese said as he adjusted an umbrella on a table outside of a cafe on Broad Street.

“There is a language barrier that exists here,” he said. “I feel everyone should speak the English language. It’s the language of this country and it’s not going to switch to Spanish, or even German for that matter.”

The “official” language portion of the ordinance was added because the city can no longer afford to produce foreign language documents, Barletta said. Besides, he said, the city doesn’t provide these forms in Russian or German, so it’s unfair to only provide the service for Spanish-speakers.

“They are making no attempt to learn (English),” the mayor said repeatedly during Thursday’s council meeting.

That is not true, said Katherine Fennelly, a University of Minnesota professor who studies rights of immigrants and refugees and the preparedness of communities and public institutions to adapt to demographic changes. Studies have shown that immigrants want to learn English, but it is often difficult for older generations to pick it up.

“Anybody who has tried to learn a language after 40 (years old) — or even after adolescence, for that matter — knows how hard it is,” Fennelly said.

The English-only portion of the ordinance could also create a legal problem for the city because it is a recipient of federal money, and the majority of residents are Hispanic, said Laurence E. Norton II, an attorney with the Harrisburg-based Community Justice Project, a non-profit public interest law firm.

Norton, who attended Thursday’s Hazleton City Council meeting, said his group would consider suing the city if a person who couldn’t get services at city hall asked the Community Justice Project to look into the matter.

In the meantime, Norton said his firm was researching other legal issues raised by the ordinance.

Barletta pointed out that he is only removing the written communication from the city. He said Spanish-speaking translators would still help.

“We are not denying access to anyone,” he said.

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Ceser Soriano was buying hot dogs from a Hazleton street vendor when he first read the ordinance. He could barely contain his anger.

“You have crime in any city and in any place in the world,” he said, clutching the folded copy of the ordinance tightly. “How can you say its just one group of people?”

Most illegal immigrants come to America to try to get jobs, he said. They work long hours, hoping for a better life, one where they are able to buy food and clothing.

“Where they were living, they had to watch their kids not eat,” he said. “Can you imagine that?”

When asked if he would come to the city council meetings to share his thoughts, Soriano looked down and hugged his young daughter tight to his side.

“No, I have to work,” Soriano said. “I work 10 1/2 hours at night.”

After Soriano walked away, a Hispanic boy on a bike asked a reporter if the mayor was going to make him move away. Several more children gathered, all asking what the ordinance meant.

The residents of the city should think about what would happen if the ordinance drives out all the new immigrants — legal and illegal, Fennelly said. Those people will also take away the economic vibrancy they have brought to the city, she pointed out.

“Think about the message (the ordinance) sends about the kind of city Hazleton is,” she said.

The mayor said he is surprised that many Hispanics are offended by the ordinance, which he said is not directed at any group of illegal immigrants.

“I think this is getting twisted,” Barletta said. “I welcome the legal immigrants.”

Instead of trying to brand Hazleton as the toughest city on illegal immigration in the nation, the city should be pushing the United States government to issue more visas so people who want to work and have good moral character can come here legally, Fennelly said.

“We are actively recruiting people to work here for a variety of reasons,” she said. “But we don’t issue enough visas to them.”

Mousin, the immigration law expert, called the ordinance “draconian.”

It will be very difficult to check every person’s status on a local basis because immigration law is complicated, Mousin said. Even federal agents charged with enforcing immigration law struggle with legal questions, he said.

A Penn State Hazleton student from another country who loses a student visa because he works too many hours in a week could be included as an illegal immigrant, Mousin said. The category could include a person who is reapplying for a visa and is in limbo at the time.

“Not all these people just crossed the Rio Grande to come and mow people’s lawns in Hazleton,” Mousin said.

ndobo@citizensvoice.com





©The Citizens Voice 2006

“Where they were living, they had to watch their kids not eat,” he said. “Can you imagine that?”

Then don't have children you can not support!!!!!!! Don't invite us to your pitty party!!!! Hint-hint! We're not going to show up!!!

Got to love the nay-sayers! Well, you won't know until you try.

Dixie

Funny how they can come up with the thousands of dollars to pay smugglers yet they cannot feed their families, what is with that?

Even federal agents charged with enforcing immigration law struggle with legal questions, he said.

What so complicated about it??? You are either here Legally or ILLEGALLY! Seems pretty simple to me!!

If the police are catching the criminals, and they turn out to be mostly Latino's.....that means a whole heck of a lot of the criminals are Latino's!!!

Latino's are using words like, racial profiling, racists....it doesn't cut it. If they think they deserve to stay here then should obey the laws....and if they are already citizens, they should work on our side, not the criminals!