Experts testify in immigration trial (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader)

STEVE MOCARSKY
Staff Writer

SCRANTON – Attorneys on both sides in Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act trial believe they advanced their cases through testimony from expert witnesses as the trial entered its second week on Monday.

One witness said the presence of illegal immigrants working in Hazleton would drive down wages for competing workers, and their absence would lead to higher wages for workers competing for those jobs.

The other said that all undocumented non-citizens in the United States are “not necessarily illegal,” refuting Mayor Lou Barletta’s well-known contention that “illegal is illegal.”

Designed to prompt an exodus of illegal immigrants from the city, the Relief Act ordinance and a related tenant registration ordinance would fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, suspend licenses of businesses that hire them and require all city tenants to show proof of citizenship or legal residency status.

Latino organizations and individuals sued the city in August, claiming that the ordinances are unconstitutional and discriminatory to Hispanics, and that they are pre-empted by federal law.

Immigrants’ effects on wages

First to testify Monday was defense witness George Borjas, a professor of economics and social policy at Harvard University, who said enforcement of Hazleton’s ordinance could lead to an initial rise in local wages if a significant portion of an immigrant work force left town.

Borjas said decreasing immigrant labor by 10 percent in a labor market could lead to a 3- to 4-percent increase in wages for people in the same type jobs. The same would hold true for an illegal immigrant work force, he said.

Borjas noted that wages at a poultry plant in Georgia increased 14 percent after federal immigration agents raided the plant and found that 75 percent of the work force was unauthorized.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Ilan Rosenberg, of Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Connor, Borjas agreed that an employer leaving town because it lost a supply of cheap labor would also drive wages down.

Rosenberg noted that while Borjas has studied the impact of immigration on wages, he never looked separately at the effects of illegal immigration.

And while Borjas testified that wages in Hazleton would increase if the ordinances drove every illegal out of the city, “he didn’t know Hazleton passed an ordinance that is prospective,” meaning that it would only apply to future hires, Rosenberg said.

Is illegal always illegal?

Plaintiff expert witness Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration attorney and law professor at Cornell University, testified there are two basic categories for foreigners in the United States – non-immigrants, who are here temporarily with visas, and immigrants, who are here permanently. However, he said many foreigners fall into neither category.

“They might not have proper immigration status, but they’re not necessarily illegal. It depends on the definition (of illegal),” he said.

Yale-Loehr said those individuals can fall into several subcategories, such as foreigners waiting for “an adjustment of status.”

Congress enacted a law in 1990 that allows illegal immigrants to pay a $1,000 penalty fee to the federal government and apply for citizenship. Although that law expired in 2001, “hundreds of thousands of people who applied are still waiting for hearings before an immigration judge,” Yale-Loehr said.

Because the government assigns no type of “temporary status” to these individuals, “they technically are removable. But as a matter of procedure,” the federal government doesn’t begin deportation proceedings, Yale-Loehr said.

Yale-Loehr said the government should have data on the status of these people in these subcategories, but for whatever reason, that’s not always the case.

Under cross-examination from defense attorney and immigration-law expert Kris W. Kobach, Yale-Loehr said that an undocumented foreigner can’t be considered “illegal” unless an immigration judge decides the person’s status.

But Kobach cited case law he said shows that’s not the case. Yale-Loehr’s theory has been “rejected by every U.S. Court of Appeals to address that question … and for the plaintiff to rely on that theory is foolhardy,” Kobach said.

Kobach also said he showed that Hazleton’s ordinances mirror terminology of federal law.

“The important argument here is that a number of courts have decided that as long as Hazleton uses federal standards in determining who is an illegal alien and the ordinances do not conflict with federal law, then the Hazleton ordinances are not preempted by federal law,” Kobach said.

Finances and crime

City Administrator Sam Monticello testified that an independent auditors report on city finances for 2005 included no reference to the financial impact illegal aliens had on the city. He said audits should include information on any substantial impact to city finances.

Monticello agreed with plaintiff attorney Tom Fiddler of Cozen O’Connor that the city presents audits to creditors when borrowing money to give the creditors “a complete picture of the city’s financial situation.” He also agreed that omitting information relevant to the city’s financial picture could be legally problematic for the city.

On direct examination by defense attorney Andrew Adair of Deasey Mahoney & Bender, Monticello said including the topic of illegal immigration was not appropriate because audits give “a picture of the city’s financial picture in fund balances, revenues and expenditures, rather than a descriptive narrative of the entire city.”

Police Chief Robert Ferdinand testified that Mayor Lou Barletta never asked him for input on the ordinances before they were written or proposed to council.

He also said Barletta never asked him for any city crime data related to illegal aliens.

Ferdinand confirmed that he provided 30 police reports in response to the plaintiffs’ request for all reports showing crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the city since 2001, as well as data on all crimes in the city since 2001.

Fiddler next established that of the 30 files, three were duplicates and seven gave the plaintiff team “no indication that illegal immigrants were involved.”

Asked if he knew for certain that there are other police reports pertaining to crimes committed by illegal immigrants, Ferdinand said he did not.

Ferdinand is expected to return to the witness stand today for additional questioning. He is the final witness on the plaintiffs’ list.

The defense team will begin calling witnesses from its list today.