Latinos claim ‘intimidation’ (Hazleton Standard-Speaker)

By KENT JACKSON
Staff Writer

SCRANTON – Latinos grew fearful for themselves and pessimistic about their businesses after Hazleton approved its immigration act, leaders of the Latino community testified Tuesday in federal court.

The testimony occurred as the second day of a trial about the constitutionality of the act delved into perceptions of Latinos who opposed the act and city officials who approved it.

When Jose Molina, regional director of the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition, testified about people being unnerved by police and sanitation workers, attorneys for the city sought to put the actions in a different light.

Next, Rudy Espinal, president of the Hazleton Hispanic Business Association, testified that businesses suffered losses after the act was approved, but the city’s attorney pointed out other factors that might have added to the downturn.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, meanwhile, have argued that the city justified the act by overstating the incidence of crime and other trends, about which they questioned City Council President Joseph Yannuzzi.

The Illegal Immigration Relief Act and a landlord-tenant act that is also challenged have been put on hold by Judge James M. Munley, who presides in the non-jury trial.

Two weeks after council approved the immigration act, Molina sensed unease when he attended a meeting with Latinos living in Hazleton.

He learned of a brick thrown through a window of restaurant owned by a Latino and complaints of trash being left in front of a Latino’s home.

“People were in fear because police were stopping and asking for documentation,” he said, recalling the meeting on July 30, 2006, in St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church basement.

He noticed police himself on Sept. 3, 2006, at Memorial Park where 300 people attended a vigil and rally against the act, and an officer pointed a video camera in his face.

“It reminded me of the civil rights (movement) of the past – the police trying to show some kind of threat – we’re watching you,” Molina said.

Carla Maresca, an attorney defending the city, asked Molina if he heard testimony on Monday from an organizer of the rally, Dr. Agapito Lopez, who said he asked the police to the rally and received full cooperation.

“That might be Dr. Lopez’s truth. When I talk about the officer in my face, that’s my truth too,” Molina said.

Under cross-examination, Molina said the media had cameras at the rally, too.

Molina, who lives in Allentown, also said he never saw Hazleton police stop anyone to ask for identification but worried what might happen if people such as his parents, who were born in Puerto Rico so they have American citizenship, drove through Hazleton.

“They don’t speak English because that’s the way the federal government allowed it to happen. If they’re going to be stopped just because of their look and can’t have a conversation with police…” he said.

Maresca also asked if Molina knew that a company called Waste Management collects garbage in Hazleton.

He said Waste Management does the same job in Allentown.

“So it’s not the City of Hazleton?” Maresca asked.

“The effect is the same,” Molina answered.

Views of the act became the subject Lopez’s testimony when he was recalled to the stand on Tuesday. He described the content of three pieces of hate mail, which he on Monday testified about receiving after he became a leader of the opposition to the act.

Two mailings were delivered to his office. One letter with a postmark from Hartford, Conn. bore the Web address for a National Socialist Party and arrived at his home.

The letter depicted a Mexican with a huge hat – “I think it’s from a spaghetti Western, Lopez said” – and contained ethnic slurs.

“It really made me feel bad. This is what people do – blame it on Latinos. They first try to make them subhuman (with terms) like an illegal alien,” Lopez said.

Hazleton’s lead attorney, Harry “Hank” Mahoney, said “Whoever sent this to you has a sick, twisted mind. I think we agree.”

“Definitely,” Lopez said.

Then Mahoney read from a speech given by Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta when the first version of the act was approved on July13. Back then, Barletta said the act singles out no national or ethnic group and applies only to illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants.

“Yes, but it’s perceived another way by the public,” Lopez said.

Jackson Chin, an attorney for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, one of the groups challenging the act, hit on the importance of perception to the case when fending off a hearsay objection to a question he asked of Molina.

“We are eliciting information not for the truth of it, but what its effects were,” he said.

Espinal testified that the 27 members of the business association complained about slow trade after council approved the act.

An owner of a gift shop told Espinal that business dropped so much that she didn’t think staying in the association would be worth her while.

Espinal also said two men expressed interest in renting one of his apartments in Hazleton until he mentioned the immigration and landlord acts.

The acts prevent any adult from getting an occupancy permit without proving legal residence in the country and fine landlords who rent to tenants who lack permits.

“The were going to take the apartment. After we spoke to them about the (the act) they never called back,” Espinal said.

Maresca cross-examined, asking: “You don’t know if, when they stepped out of the apartment they found an apartment that was cheaper or looked better?”

“No,” Espinal said.

Maresca also produced a financial statement from the gift shop that Espinal mentioned. Monthly commissions or wiring money went up and down during the period in which council discussed and approved immigration act.

But Espinal said the statement didn’t account for total sales at the store, which also offered phone cards and gifts.

When Yannuzzi became the first city official to testify, plaintiff’s attorney Tom Wilkinson asked if he knew how many renters lived in the city and would have to obtain occupancy permits.

“No, that was one of our problems,” Yannuzzi said.

Did the police chief, Wilkinson asked, present crime statistics or say the city was overrun by crime before council approved the act?

“No,” Yannuzzi answered again.

Wilkinson asked what Yannuzzi knew about Hazleton General Hospital, where the city claims waits are longer and the hospital has to provide more charity care because illegal immigrants use the emergency room.

Yannuzzi said the chief executive of the officer spoke to council but didn’t supply financial documents.

Also, Yannuzzi agreed with Wilkinson that any costs incurred by the Hazleton Area School District while educating illegal immigrants – an expense cited in the defense’s brief as an argument for the law – are separate from the city budget.

Education and health care costs mattered less that crime to Yannuzzi, who said a murder on May 10, 2006, in which illegal immigrants were charged was the main reason why he supported the act.

“There was a violent crime committed. That’s all I needed,” Yannuzzi said.