Hazleton Anti-Immigrant Ordinance Rule Unconstitutional
Today, a federal judge in Scranton, PA ruled against the City of Hazleton in a landmark challenge (Lozano v. City of Hazleton) to local ordinances aimed at punishing landlords, employers, and people perceived to be immigrants.
In a 206-page opinion, U.S. District Judge James Munley said the act was pre-empted by federal law and would violate due process rights:
“Whatever frustrations … the city of Hazleton may feel about the current state of federal 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…Even if federal law did not conflict with Hazleton’s measures, the city could not enact an ordinance that violates rights the Constitution guarantees to every person in the United States, whether legal resident or not.”
Said David Lubell, Director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition:
“Today’s decision is a win in America’s effort to restore the rule of law while upholding our tradition of fairness and equality. We are grateful that the court recognized these are not mutually exclusive concepts and made a decision to prevent the harmful effects we would have all suffered if this law had been implemented. This ruling sends a clear message that the Hazleton ordinance, and the copycat ordinances proposed last year in Nashville, are unconstitutional and would not be allowed to stand.”
This is really going to make some people mad but their anger will undoubtedly be focused in absolutely the wrong direction. Instead of blaming people with brown skin we should instead blame Republican members of Congress who blocked debate over comprehensive immigration reform.
In poll after poll, the American people have said we want want fair and reasonable immigration reform and today’s ruling underscores that it’s the federal government’s responsibility to give it to us. And if Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob “Stay the” Corker would put down this particular political football, we just might get it.
This post was written by Mary Mancini
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 26th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
[…] Mary Mancini on the district court ruling striking down the restrictionist local ordinances of Hazelton, PA. The court says in essence that, in the immigration realm, the federal government in preeminent. This is really going to make some people mad but their anger will undoubtedly be focused in absolutely the wrong direction. Instead of blaming people with brown skin we should instead blame Republican members of Congress who blocked debate over comprehensive immigration reform. […]
July 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
This is probably going to go right over your heads, but the ordinance wasn’t “Anti-Immigrant”, nor is the vast majority of the anger directed at those with “brown skin” simply because of their “brown skin”. And, the polls you refer to are usually extremely biased and designed to obtain a specific result.