Barletta Battles For Sweet Home, Hazleton

Before Governor Janet Brewer of Arizona there was Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Born and bred. In 2007, I wrote about this much-loved local leader, who has legitimately and faithfully represented his constituents—Republican and Democratic—in attempting to salvage a community ravaged by unchecked immigration.

Unwilling to wait for Washington, Mayor Louis Barletta of Hazleton attempted to reclaim his town by passing local ordinances to crack down on those who employ or rent to illegals. Barletta’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act was found to conflict with the unenforced Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, and, therefore, to be in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. This, even though the Supreme Court itself has conceded that not every ‘state enactment …which deals with aliens is a regulation of immigration.’

Now, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has adopted the same decision issued in July 2007 by a U.S. District Judge, ruling that “the ordinance violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which precludes states from enacting laws that are at odds with federal law.”

As I said at the time, I am not thrilled that to defend his town a mayor has been forced to circumscribe renting and hiring. Still less am I enamored of the ACLU and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund usurping a beloved Hazleton home boy—in the past, Barletta has won both Republican and Democratic nominations overwhelmingly.

Having become aliens in their hometown, Hazleton residents imagined that the Constitution allowed them a measure of autonomy over how they lived their lives. How wrong they were.