ACLU Sues Pennsylvania Town Over Anti-Illegal Immigration Laws

Is the ACLU in favor of illegal immigration? A town in Pennsylvania must think so. A town outside Scranton, Pennsylvania is being sued by the ACLU for its tough stance on illegal immigrants. In a federal trial that opened on Monday, the ACLU brought charges that the city's rules and regulations regarding hiring of illegal immigrants and landlords for renting to them were "discriminatory and overreaching."

The laws, which have not yet gone into effect, would punish employers who knowingly hired an illegal alien, as well as a landlord to knowingly rented property to an illegal alien.

According to Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, "The city has responded rationally to a very real threat." The laws came as a response to a surge in violent crime and gang warfare that city officials attributed to the city's growing illegal immigrant population. Kobach said the town has welcomed immigrants in the past, but around 2000, "something ... changed. Hazleton had seen new criminals and new sorts of crime."

The ACLU, along with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, say the rules "encourage discrimination against Hispanic residents, violate federal and state housing laws, and overstep the powers of a local government to deal with immigration."

"Law regarding immigration can and must be passed only by Congress," said Witold Walczak, the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU's legal director. In his opening statement, he warned of potential racial vendettas perpetrated by whites against neighbors of Hispanic origins.

Louis J. Barletta, the mayor Hazleton, denied charges the new laws were racist in nature, and defended the city's goal of making Hazleton hostile territory for illegal immigrants.

"Illegal is illegal," he said. "There is no race in illegal." Mr. Barletta said that some Hispanic businesses had complained they were losing customers. "We witnessed many people leaving in the dark of night," he continued. "We have to assume they were illegal aliens."