SCRANTON, PA. — The nation's first trial debating the rights of local governments to curtail illegal immigration began Monday in federal court, with officials from the city of Hazleton, Pa., defending laws that would make life difficult for undocumented residents and civil liberties lawyers charging that the measures unfairly targeted Latinos.
Lawyers defending the Hazleton ordinances argued that the city wanted to take control of immigration law because the federal government had failed to deal with problems caused by undocumented residents.
They said illegal immigrants brought crime and gangs to the community of 31,000 residents, drained funding for public schools and caused longer waits in hospital emergency rooms.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that filed the lawsuit against Hazleton claimed the city's laws discriminated against Latino residents, no matter their legal status. The ordinances conflict with the federal government's authority to regulate immigration, the lawyers argued.
Politicians and immigration organizations say the outcome of the Hazleton trial could affect dozens of communities nationwide that are trying to enact similar laws.
"We're no longer fighting for only Hazleton," said Mayor Louis J. Barletta, who has fiercely defended the ordinances. Standing outside the courtroom Monday, he said, "We're fighting for cities across the country."
The City Council of the former coal-mining town northwest of Philadelphia approved ordinances last year that would fine landlords who rented to illegal immigrants, deny business permits to companies that employed them, and require residents to register with the city to prove their citizenship.
Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act was set to take effect Nov. 1, 2006, but U.S. District Judge James M. Munley barred enforcement until a trial could determine its constitutionality.
During Monday's opening arguments before Munley, the lead lawyer for Hazleton, Kris Kobach, said Barletta backed the measures to protect the city he served and loved, and because the federal government was not keeping illegal immigrants out.
Kobach, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law and a onetime immigration advisor to former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, said Hazleton's crime rate jumped with the influx of undocumented residents.
