Local Actions

Against illegal immigrants. This is how the battle (and it is a battle) looks down in the streets, not it the ivory towers or the safety of your suburban utopia, folks.

HAZLETON, Pa. – With tensions rising and the police department and municipal budget stretched thin, Hazleton is about to embark on one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants anywhere in the United States.

Last week the mayor of this former coal town introduced, and the City Council tentatively approved, a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the official language of the city.

"Illegal immigrants are destroying the city," said Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican. "I don't want them here, period."

Barletta said he had no choice but to act after two illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic were charged last month with shooting and killing a 29-year-old man. Other recent incidents involving illegal immigrants have rattled this city 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia, including the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for firing a gun at a playground.

"This is crazy," the mayor said. "People are afraid to walk the streets. There's going to be law and order back in Hazleton, and I'm going to use every tool I possibly can."

The City Council, which approved the measure in a 4-1 vote, must vote on it twice more before it can become law. The next vote is scheduled for mid-July.

La Raza threatens lawsuits, of course. Things are getting quite bad out there. Yes, there are good people just looking to work. There are also, quite obviously some very bad people. Hazleton is not alone, though.

In San Bernardino, Calif., voters will decide whether to adopt a measure nearly identical to the one in Hazleton. An Idaho county filed a racketeering lawsuit against agricultural companies accused of hiring illegal immigrants. In New Hampshire, a pair of police chiefs began arresting illegal immigrants for trespassing.

"They're being forced to pick up the financial tab for all of this nonsense, and they are doing whatever they can to find ways to combat it at the local level," said Susan Tully, national field director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limits on immigration. "This is a fine example of what I'm talking about."

We have got to get control of the border. Period. The Senate missed a chance. They need to do a lot better in conference or I expect the House to stop that bill in it's tracks.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the alternate universe, the New York Times has a ridiculously sympathetic article on the poor, hardworking flood on illegal immigrants. The story contains one thing that really caught my eye:

Starting about 30 years ago, as illegal immigration began to swell, building maintenance contractors in big immigrant hubs like Los Angeles started hiring the new immigrant workers as part of a broader effort to drive down labor costs. Unions for janitors fell apart as landlords shifted to cheaper nonunion contractors to clean their buildings. Wages fell and many American-born workers left the industry.

Between 1970 and 2000, the share of Hispanic immigrants among janitors in Los Angeles jumped from 10 percent to more than 60 percent, according to a forthcoming book by Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, titled "L.A. Story: Work, Immigration and Unionism in America's Second City." (Russell Sage Foundation, August 2006.)

Now maybe someone can explain why the Democrats, who supposedly back organized labor and count them as automatic votes, still have any loyalty from the unions? The Dems are backing even more immigration.