Thread: HAZLETON-not all of corp. America is aligned with the ACLU

Hazleton City Limits
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
http://www.investors.com/editorial/edit ... 6746739105
Posted 3/16/2007

Home Rule: The city of Hazleton, Pa., goes to court to defend its right to fight illegal immigration and enforce U.S. laws. Local and state governments across the country are saying if the feds won't stem the tide, they will.

Last summer, Hazleton, feeling the added burden of illegal immigration in terms of crime and economic cost, decided to remove the incentives and enforce the law — its own and that of an ambivalent federal government. Under the leadership of Mayor Louis Barletta, it passed an ordinance penalizing landlords who rent to illegals and businesses that give them jobs.

As Barletta explains it on a Web site created to support this growing movement by cities and towns (smalltowndefenders.com), 'Illegal aliens in our city create an economic burden that threatens our way of life.'

Barletta says his city of 31,000 just south of Scranton, like other smaller communities, can't afford the increased strain on government services and the effects of imported crime.

The usual suspects — the ACLU and various Hispanic groups — filed suit, calling the city's action divisive and racist and claiming it trampled on the federal government's exclusive power to regulate immigration. Of course, these groups oppose any restrictions on illegal immigration at any level of government.

Barletta believes it has nothing to do with regulation and everything to do with enforcement of existing law, and that if the feds are lax, then cities, and even states, must pick up the slack. He denies racism is the motive.

'What I'm doing here,' he said, 'is protecting the legal taxpayer of any race.'

The nonjury trial of the case began a week ago in the Scranton courtroom of U.S. District Judge James Munley, a Clinton appointee. He has barred enforcement of the city's ordinance pending the trial's outcome. 'This is the day we've been waiting for a long time,' Barletta said. 'Small cities can no longer sit back and wait for the federal government to do something.'

This is the first case involving a community's right to deal with illegal immigration on its own, and dozens of communities across the country that have followed Hazleton's lead are watching with great interest. Riverside, N.J., quickly passed a similar measure that fines landlords $1,000 a day for renting to illegals and yanks licenses from businesses that hire them.

In court papers, Hazleton said illegal aliens had committed 47 crimes since last spring. Included was a killing in which two illegals from the Dominican Republic were charged with murdering a 29-year-old man. Illegals also accounted for a third of all drug arrests in 2005. All this while driving up the costs of health care and education.

From 2000 to 2004, illegal immigrants were charged with just three crimes in Hazleton. Five were arrested in 2005, and the rate is rising fast. A major drug bust last year involved illegal aliens and street gangs, including the Latin Kings and MS-13, a Salvadoran gang linked to terrorism.

At the state level, legislatures have considered a record 550 pieces of immigration-related legislation and passed at least 77 new laws in 27 states, according to Stateline.org, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures.

As we have reported, one of those states is Texas, where the Lone Star Foundation in Austin says illegal aliens drain $4.5 billion from the state economy, mostly in health care costs.

When asked about illegal immigration recently on 'Fox News Sunday,' Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee and possible presidential candidate, noted that we 'woke up one day after years of neglect and apparently discovered that we have somewhere between 12 million and 20 million illegal aliens in this country.'

Thompson said he was 'concerned about the next 12 million or 20 million.' So are we, and so is the mayor of Hazleton.

If it is true that HAZLETON has no standing to enforce a FEDERAL LAW, what gives the ACLU the standing to sue a city for attempting to enforce federal law... ONLY the Federal Government can sue for someone infringing on its powers....right?