Thread: Xenophobic Ordinance is the Wrong Answer

http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/286846303232577

Xenophobic ordinance is the wrong answer

In the month since the City Council of Hazelton, Pa., passed its Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance, it has attracted the attention of dozens of other cities that want copies for their own consideration — as well as a lawsuit filed last week by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a number of immigrants' rights organizations.

Council members and Hazelton citizens had to know that was going to happen.

Local officials for some time had been expressing concern over what they said were increasing numbers of illegal immigrants coming into the small city of Hazelton (population about 31,000), committing crimes and draining social service budgets. But they have never made public any statistics to back up those concerns.

Mayor Lou Barletta had also expressed frustration over inaction on immigration reform by the federal government.

So he proposed what has been called one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants by a U.S. city — and the City Council approved it July 13.

The action by the city about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia will fine landlords $1,000 for renting to illegal immigrants, deny business permits to companies that give them jobs and make English the city's official language. The ordinance takes effect Sept. 11.

While we can certainly sympathize with Mayor Barletta's frustration with the federal government for failing in its constitutional responsibility to address immigration, we do not believe that individual cities passing immigration policy is the proper response.

We have to agree with a staff attorney at the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, who said, "Hazleton's anti-immigrant ordinance is bad for the community, is unconstitutional and will foster rampant discrimination." Calling it "mean-spirited," the attorney said the ordinance is "wrong for many reasons, but the most obvious is that the city does not have the power to make its own immigration laws."

That was one of the basic points of the lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, the national ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Community Justice Project, a Philadelphia-based law firm and three Hazelton attorneys.

They said in legal papers that the ordinance violates the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause because it seeks to override federal law and the exclusive federal power over immigration. The suit also charges that the ordinance violates business and property owners' due process rights under the Constitution because it is nearly impossible for them to ensure compliance. In addition, the ordinance's "English only" provision violates city residents' First Amendment rights to free speech.

The suit also charges that the ordinance defines certain persons as "illegal aliens" using a definition so broad that it includes many lawful

residents and naturalized citizens.

According to a report last week in the Times-Leader of Wilkes-Barre, the county seat of Luzerne County — where people of Hispanic origin make up less than 15 percent of the population — a more immediate effect of the not-yet-enforced ordinance is an "eruption" of tension in Hazelton's minority community, where leaders say the act promotes discrimination.

In this nation built by immigrants, we must find a realistic — and constitutional — balance between fair and humane immigration policies,


the widespread need for immigrant workers and the absolute requirement for secure borders. And we must do it on a national level.

Local laws like Hazelton's have the potential to create a racist and random patchwork that would be abhorrent to the founders of the United States of America.


* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins and Bill Lee.


Noticed you didn't get the entire article so I posted here.

Just their opinion although I certainly don't agree. The Hazelton illegals can go to their city then.

Local laws like Hazelton's have the potential to create a racist and random patchwork that would be abhorrent to the founders of the United States of America.

I think they'd be darned proud to see Americans fighting for the rule of law and the Constitution!

Local laws like Hazelton's have the potential to create a racist and random patchwork that would be abhorrent to the founders of the United States of America.

The only group which this kind of action instills racism is the ILLEGAL group. Beneath all the fluff, they are just upset because now its time to pay the piper, and they are acting like spoiled little children. WE DON'T WANT TO GO HOME! WAHHH WAHHH WAHH... Cry me a freaking river.