Free Republic

In July, 2006, the little known town of Hazleton in Pennsylvania became a key focal point in the national debate over immigration reform. The council approved a controversial ordinance that granted the city's authorities extraordinary powers in dealing with undocumented immigrants and those who offered them employment. The man behind the measure was the town's mayor, Lou Barletta, who has since become a leading figure of anti-immigrant campaigners in the US. The law sought to punish businesses that hired undocumented workers and the landlords who rented out properties to them. About a third of the former coal mining town's 30,000-strong...

Press conference with Alan Keyes April 15, 2008 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time Hazleton, Pennsylvaniawww.alankeyes.com

Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes has chosen April 15 to make a major announcement of his intentions, following indications he has broken with the GOP. A life-long Republican who has increasingly cited the party's failure to match conservative rhetoric with actual performance in the political arena, Keyes said he will reveal his reasons for departing the GOP at a press conference scheduled for 8:30 pm ET, at the Best Western Genetti Inn in Hazleton, PA. The event will be video-streamed live at Keyes' website, www.AlanKeyes.com. Keyes added that he is looking to the Constitution Party as a possible home...

Kelvin Reyes-Rosario, Luis Reyes, Ricardo Doninguez and Rafael Guzman-Mateo got an incentive to learn English: speaking and writing the language can keep them out of jail. When Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. sentenced the four Hazleton men to serve four to 24 months for assault on Wednesday in Luzerne County Court, he added a twist. If they pass an English test a year from now, they will remain free after serving the minimum sentence. If they fail the test, they go back to prison for the full term. The creative sentence appealed to some who believe learning English will help...

Arizona Sen. John McCain has rejected Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta's invitation to come to the southern Luzerne County city and discuss illegal immigration. "Senator McCain truly appreciates your invitation and the valuable opportunity it represents," a scheduling official, Jo Black, in the presumptive Republican nominee's presidential campaign wrote in a letter. Barletta's congressional campaign released the letter today. "Unfortunately, I must pass along his regrets as I do not foresee an opportunity to add this event to the calendar." Black said McCain has "tremendous demands on his time" and because of "the large volume of similar requests, events such as...

AFTER A CAREER as a newspaperman in a number of different states and cities I’ve become accustomed to readers’ telling me their town is different than others. Keep that in mind as you edit our newspaper, they say, because “we really are different here.” Most often than not they aren’t and neither is the town where they reside. Not different, that is. But, there is nothing wrong with being parochial and proud of where a person lives. Feeling special and unique, even if it is just one person in a population of tens of thousands, carries its own sense of...

A mother now stands accused in connection with the death of her two-year-old son and her boyfriend faces a count of homicide. Lillian Torres is charged with involuntary manslaughter for doing nothing to prevent her two-year-old son's death. Emmanuel Gonzalez died Sunday morning. Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas described the child's death as one of the worst child abuse cases he's ever seen. Lupas charged Lillian Torres, 19, Emmanuel Gonzalez's mother, with involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with her son's death. Lupas said Torres allowed the abuse to happen and ignored her duty...

A Hazleton man was arraigned Sunday night on charges related to the apparent beating death of a 2-year-old boy. Hazleton police arrested 20-year-old Alexander Garcia, charging him with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children. He was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Joseph Zola and committed to Luzerne County Correctional Facility on $2 million cash bail. According to an affidavit of probable cause, Hazleton Cpl. Gerald Tray and Patrolman Shawn Conti were dispatched to Hazleton General Hospital on Sunday at 12:29 a.m. for a death investigation. Hospital staff took them to the emergency room, where 2-year-old Emanuel Gonzalez was...

Republican captures third straight term, knocking off Libertarian John Medashefski. HAZLETON – Mayor Lou Barletta creamed his opponent, John Medashefski, by a 9-to-1 margin on Tuesday, according to unofficial election results. Not surprisingly, the 51-year-old Republican won his third consecutive term by a landslide, given that Barletta captured both the GOP nomination and the Democratic nod as well in the May primary with a last-minute write-in campaign. Medashefski, a 52-year-old coffee shop owner and artist, ran on the Libertarian ticket in a terribly under-funded campaign with no TV advertising. “Myself, as a newcomer, I guess expected what I got. But...

HAZLETON, Pa. - Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta easily won re-election Tuesday to a third term, and in his victory party he talked about fighting drugs and violence in the city. He also talked about the issue of illegal immigrants. He said, "We've seen what illegal immigration has done to our small town quality of life and we have said, 'No! We will not let this happen."' He said, "We will fight!" Barletta, a Republican, gained national prominence by targeting illegal immigrants living in his Luzerne County city. Yesterday, he defeated Libertarian candidate John Medashefski, a coffee shop owner who had...

Cops: Kelvin DeJesus hit his estranged wife, daughter, another man with wooden bat. HAZLETON (PA) – A Hazleton man accused of beating his estranged wife and 5-year-old daughter with a baseball bat early Friday morning was angry because he witnessed the child and her 4-year-old sister hugging his wife’s boyfriend the night before, police and prosecutors said. A bloody Kelvin DeJesus, 24, of 327 W. Green St., was charged with multiple counts of aggravated and simple assault in connection with the brutal attack that happened just before 4 a.m. “I love her very much, I’m sorry,” DeJesus said about his...

massive drug sweep that netted at least two non-U.S. citizens in Hazleton, Pa., demonstrates that local municipalities need the power to crack down on illegal immigrants, according to the city's mayor, Lou Barletta. After a seven-month investigation, the state Attorney General's Office announced Thursday that it had charged 40 people - all of them suspected dealers - with involvement in a Northeast Pennsylvania cocaine ring that allegedly made $31 million over three years and is based in Hazleton. Among those charged were two illegal immigrants and five or six other noncitizens with green cards

A northeastern Pennsylvania cocaine ring that allegedly rang up sales of more than $31 million over three years was broken up Thursday as law enforcement officials announced charges against 40 suspects. The arrests came after a seven-month undercover investigation launched after two confidential informants approached police with information about the sale of crack cocaine in the Hazleton area. State Attorney General Tom Corbett said that some of the suspects are believed to be illegal immigrants - a disclosure that is sure to add fuel to the debate over Hazleton's now-defunct Illegal Immigration Relief Act. According to a criminal complaint, undercover...

Plaintiffs who successfully sued to overturn Hazleton's illegal-immigrant law want the city to pay more than $2.3 million in legal fees. U.S. District Judge James Munley struck down the Illegal Immigration Relief Act in July, ruling it unconstitutional. Hazleton has appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs asked Munley yesterday to award them more than $2.3 million in fees and an additional $45,000 in related costs. Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta called the request absurd and said the city would fight it. Barletta has raised $400,000 for the city's legal defense...

I don’t often write about law. It’s been one of my professions for 35 years, but I have to admit the subject is boring. I don’t often accuse anyone else of being “un-American” because there’s a lot of leeway for opinion in a free country. Today I drop both restrictions. The subject is Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and the ACLU. The ACLU filed today (Friday) a petition for Hazleton to pay it $2.4 million in fees because ACLU lawyers persuaded a US District judge to strike down a series of local ordinances. Those laws intended to make it difficult for illegal aliens...

The attorneys who successfully challenged Hazleton's illegal immigration ordinance in federal court want the city to pay their legal fees and costs totaling close to $2.4 million. A 28-page petition filed in federal court Friday blames the city for driving up the fees for the attorneys pursuing the case, who represented several of Hazleton's Hispanic residents, landlords and community groups. Since passing the first ordinance of its kind in July 2006, the city passed at least three additional versions of the ordinance in an attempt to improve its chances of winning the lawsuit. The often unexpected changes made the case...

Popular with voters in Hazleton, Louis Barletta eyes campaign against Democratic Congressman: Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Louis Barletta, whose visibility is unusually high because of his campaign against undocumented workers and their families says he will decide by January whether to run for Congress in 2008. "I'm giving it serious consideration," said Mr. Barletta, a Republican. "I like being mayor, but everybody knows I've been disappointed by Washington's inaction on immigration reform."

In what has been called "A Tale of Two Cities," Hazleton, Pa., and New Haven have been taking sharply contrasting courses on illegal immigration. But they came to a crossroads of sorts in a Pennsylvania courtroom last week. Hazleton, once a bustling coal town that fell on hard times after the mines played out, enacted a law penalizing landlords and employers who associated with illegal aliens. In a lawsuit bankrolled by the American Civil Liberties Union, illegals and their advocates contended Hazleton was interfering with the federal government's constitutional authority over immigration. U.S. District Court Judge James Munley agreed, but...

A telling irony shines through last week's ruling by a federal judge that found only Congress can set immigration law. The judge knew full well that half the plaintiffs in the case were in the US illegally. But he let them challenge a city ordinance on immigration anyway – and anonymously. And so it's been in America for too long: Turn a blind eye to the massive lawbreaking of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Imagine if a scofflaw wanted by the FBI had sued a city for enacting a criminal law tougher than a federal law. Would that person...

A federal judge cast the bright light of reality into the immigration issue last week when he ruled that cities have no place in deciding who is legal or illegal. The ruling found unconstitutional the ordinances written by the leaders of Hazleton, Pa., a small town that has become a model for towns wanting to take the law into their own hands. The ruling came as a reminder that though Congress has failed to take responsible action on immigration, the job of writing immigration law can't be usurped by local government. The ordinances in Hazleton were meant to punish landlords...