Right decision made in Hazleton-law case (Reading, Pa., Eagle)

The Issue: A federal judge strikes down Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act as unconstitutional.

Our Opinion: Although the decision is correct, federal lawmakers need to find the political courage to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.

Judge James M. Munley was right in striking down Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act, but Hazleton Mayor Louis J. Barletta is also right in accusing the federal government of not doing its job.

For years the federal government has been dragging its feet on illegal immigration to the frustration of many who have to deal with the consequences at the state and local levels.

Efforts earlier this summer to pass a comprehensive immigration law that would have addressed many of the problems foundered in Congress because extreme elements of both parties were unable to compromise on various issues.

Fed up with the inaction, Hazleton passed a law last year designed to make the small city as uncomfortable as possible for illegal immigrants.

The law prohibited landlords from renting to illegal immigrants and businesses from hiring them. It also required tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.

Similar laws have been approved or are pending in about 100 cities across the country.

Barletta has insisted that the law is aimed only at illegal immigrants, whom he blamed for an increase in crime and an overburdening of the schools and social services.

However many in the city’s Latino community, which makes up a third of Hazleton’s 30,000 population, believe the impetus behind the law was racial prejudice.

During the trial challenging the law, attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union showed that only four of the 428 violent crimes committed in Hazleton in six year could be attributed to illegal immigrants.

Unquestionably, the city has experienced dramatic growth since 2000, when the U.S. Census Bureau listed its population as 22,000.

Most of that growth has been from an influx of Latinos from New York and New Jersey attracted by the low crime, affordable housing and a resurgence of manufacturing jobs in the area.

Although most of the Latinos in Hazleton are legal residents, officials suspect the number of undocumented residents range from 1,500 to 3,400.

There is no doubt that a rapid increase in population, especially one that involves a clash of cultures, will cause problems. But, as Munley noted, the law passed by Hazleton is not the way to solve them.

“The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public,” Munley wrote in his 206-page opinion. “Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community.”

The judge also wrote, “Whatever frustrations officials of the city of Hazleton may feel about the current state of immigration enforcement, the nature of the political system in the United States prohibits the city from enacting ordinances that disrupt a carefully drawn federal statutory scheme.”

Munley’s characterization of the federal government’s approach to illegal immigration as a carefully drawn statutory scheme is laughable.

Although Hazleton definitely overstepped its bounds, the lack of action on the part of Congress to deal with illegal immigration is inexcusable.

Lawmakers need to find the political courage to stand up to the extreme elements of their constituencies on both sides of this issue. If they don’t the problem will continue to fester, and more local governments will attempt to take matters into their own hand.