HAZLETON, Pa., Nov. 19, 2006
Welcome To Hazleton
One Mayor's Controversial Plan To Deal With Illegal Immigration
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Kroft On Pa. Mayor's Action
"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft talks to Mike Wuebben about the action Hazleton, Pa.'s Mayor Lou Barletta took on illegal immigration in his town.
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freeSpeech: Lou Barletta
Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Lou Barletta got tired of waiting for the federal government to act on illegal immigration, so, as he says in tonight's freeSpeech, he took his own action.
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Hazelton's Immigration Battle
Steve Kroft reports on one Pennsylvania mayor's controversial plan to deal with illegal immigration.
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Mayor Lou Barletta (CBS)
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Frustrated with the lack of action in Washington, local communities are taking matters into their own hands, by passing laws and ordinances specifically designed to drive illegal immigrants out of their towns. And they are doing by denying them places to live and work. It has raised all sorts of issues and touched off a legal fight that is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme court. And as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, it’s being fought of all places, in a city called Hazleton.
Nestled deep in the Pocono Mountains, Hazleton, Pa. has the look and feel of an all-American town.
Most of the people who turned out for the town's annual end of summer parade are descendents of immigrants who came here in the 19th and early 20th century, including the mayor, Lou Barletta.
The Barlettas came from Italy, and ended up with a street named after them. Now the mayor is making a name for himself by going after a different type of immigrant.
Barletta believes what has been going on in Hazleton, a city of about 30,000 people, is a microcosm of what’s been going on all over the country, that illegal immigrants are overwhelming his city, draining its resources and ruining the quality of life
Immigration is a job that has always been handled by the federal government. Asked why he is getting involved, Barletta tells Kroft, "Well, obviously if the federal government was doing something about it you wouldn't be here today. And I wouldn't be talking about it. I mean, we're over 2,000 miles from the nearest Mexican border. So, if cities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, that sits on top of a mountain is having an illegal immigration problem, I can only imagine what it's like elsewhere in the United States.”
Hazleton’s "problem" began nearly a decade ago, when the state of Pennsylvania began offering huge tax breaks to attract new businesses. And it worked, ushering in a period of growth and prosperity. Factories, distribution centers and office parks sprung up creating 5,000 jobs, many of them for unskilled labor. By and large the people who moved here to take them were Hispanics from urban areas, who brought diversity, a different language, and in some cases big city problems that Hazleton had never had before. In the year 2000, Latinos represented just five percent of the population. Today, the figure is 30 percent.
Asked what percentage he thinks are illegal immigrants, Barletta says, "Nobody knows that. Nobody knows that anywhere in the United States how many illegals are here."
"If you don't know how many illegal aliens are here, why do you think you have a problem?" Kroft asks.
"When you start seeing serious crimes being committed, very violent crimes being committed and time and time again those involved are illegal aliens, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that you're experiencing a problem here that you've never had before, nor do you have the resources to deal with it," the mayor replies.
The catalyst was two violent crimes involving illegal immigrants; a May 10th murder by two Dominican men, and a drive by shooting. The mayor claims that elderly residents are afraid to leave their homes, and constituents begged him do something.
Serious crimes have nearly doubled in the past two years, and Hazleton’s small police force, with its five-man shifts, is not equipped deal with it. The department had exhausted its overtime budget for this year more than four months ago.
"Well, you know, this is a police department that has 31 police officers. A city of our size should have 60," Barletta says. "We arrested an illegal alien for selling crack cocaine on a playground. It took our detectives five hours to determine who he was. He had five different Social Security cards."
At the hospitals, un-reimbursed medical expenses for things like emergency room visits are up by 60 percent. Public school enrollments are up 25 percent.
And the budget for teaching English as a second language has gone from $500 a year to more than $875,000. There are no statistics to corroborate that any of these increases are directly related to illegal immigrants because they have been almost invisible here, and indistinguishable from legal members of the immigrant community.
Last summer, Mayor Barletta and the city council tried to change that by pulling in the welcome mat. They passed an ordinance called the "Illegal Immigration Relief Act," which punishes local businesses and landlords who give work or shelter to illegal immigrants.
Under the local law, anyone who hires an illegal immigrant or rents an apartment to one faces the loss of their business license and thousands of dollars of fines. It also requires everyone in Hazleton who rents an apartment to go to City Hall with a passport, birth certificate or immigration documents or citizenship to show that they are in the country legally. The names can then be checked against a federal data base to determine their immigration status.
Produced By Janet Klein
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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See all 443 CommentsAs for the ACLU, Mind your own business not ours!! Stay out of things that you have no business interferring with!! A city should have the right to govern its territory, You didn't build the city, it dosen't belong to you, or the illegal immigrants.
Call them Criminal Aliens!
Or Illegal Aliens.
You seem to be on the side of Criminals instead of citizens of the United States of America.
they don't speak english nor Watch your show unless you put in all languages here in the USA!We do however. Hummmm?
Roxy
USA, USA,
I also find it funny that the ACLU says this issue shouldn't be handled at the local level but at the federal level; and yet issues like abortion they say should be handled at the local level. What hypocrites! I think we should deport those who work for the ACLU too!
As far as the A.C.L.U Well I thought it stood for American Civil Liberties Union. If they are illegal they should have no rights in that respect because they are not American. I am part Irish but mostly American Indian. Remember when you said Indian and it meant American Indian. Now it means some one from India. All these nationalities that put it before American, well that's just wrong. Why not say American Irish, American Japanese, American African because we are Americans first and foremost. Heck if you are born and raised here then it should just be American. Also the language thing. If we moved to another country we would have to speak their language. They would not change it for us. When someone comes to this country speak the language. I guess I will get off the soap box but will reserve the right to step back on it.
To the Mayor of Hazelton. Thank You for trying to protect us all. Our borders are way too lax.
p.s. "alien" has 2 meanings in the english language. just because someone is an alien doesn't mean they are from outter space. wow.
Dictionary definition of alien
1alien adj
1a: belonging or relating to another person, place, or thing: STRANGE
b: relating, belonging, or owing allegiance to another country or government: FOREIGN
2: differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility
syn see EXTRINSIC
-- alienly adv -- alien.ness -y e n-n e s n
2alien n
1: a person of another family, race, or nation
2: a foreign-born resident who has not been naturalized and is still a subject or citizen of a foreign country; broadly :a foreign-born citizen
3: EXTRATERRESTRIAL
3alien vt
1: ALIENATE, ESTRANGE
2: to make over (as property)
I live in Houston where there is a huge illegal population. Our schools are suffering, our health care system is suffering -- the bleeding must stop!!
I have no problem with immigration, but I do have a problem with people who break the law, by coming into the US, using fake documents, and working illegally.
I also have a problem with the crime-rate increase that IS due to the illegal population. I can remember when there was a murder ever few years or so and it was a shock to the entire community. Now, you hear of a shooting, murder, drug bust, every few weeks. Granted, not all of these crimes are directly related to illegal immigration, but a large number of them are, including a man who was murdered, just 3 blocks from where I live.
When I was in High School (in the late 80's) there were no gangs, not one. Now there are dozens of gamgs, including MS-13, which National Geographic's Explorer referred to as the "world's most dangerous gang."
Like Mayor Barletta, I hate seeing my hometown being destroyed. If you want to live here, is it so bad to ask that you follow the same rules everyone else had to?
NOW IMIGRANT BECOME HEAD LINE NEWS, MAKE SOME POLITICIAN FAMOUS.
BUT DONT WE NEED THEM TO WORK?
ALSO JUST LOOKING ON SOME STATES WHO DID KICK THEM OUT, FACTURES, HOUSES, JOBS......ETC
SOME AMERICAN FAMILIES WAS HURT, DIVORCES, BANKRUPT.....ETC...ETC
OF COURSE SOME IMMIGRANT ARE CRIMINAL, BUT SHOUD WE JUDI THEM ALL THE SAME?
LOOK AHEAD WITH LEGALIZATION OF THE GOOD ONES ..........BYING PAWER OF TEN MILHION MORE ...........HOUSES,CARS,TAX COLECTION LEGALY....ETC....ETC
Remember this... the US does have laws for those crossing into this country without going through the proper border check points. That is what the problem is not a days. too many people are doing this, then using the federal services and getting welfare, health care, free education for the kids, food stamps and who knows what else... Face it. if you are an american citizen and are caught using a fake federal document, you are thrown into jail. but apparently if your illegal, you arent. kinda two sided isnt it???
and by the way before you say anything this isnt about a race of people, this is about ILLEGALLY entering the US. thus they are technically criminals for doing this.
The wimpy questions where she only had to answer yes or no was a joke. The fact that the ACLU is doing anything against americans and supporting mexican is a joke in itself
When my people break the law we go to jail. We don't get jobs, education and medical care for doing so.
If children can sneak into the country, why not terrorists?
This country is based on equal treatment for people. That would include punishing all who break our laws.
Illegal is illegal and there is no way to spin it to make it acceptable.
As for Americans not wanting the jobs illegals do, put the welfare mothers to work.
No one asks for the opinion of the average black citizen on this matter, so here it is.
WHTCH HIM BACH IN COUPLE MONTHS ON THIS ISSUE....
P.s. the sales industry is the largest one in this country, if a million undocumented workers shop in one day,,look at the return
Thank god for someone like Mayor Barletta who finally has the courage to stand up and defend the rights of the working and tax paying americans whose rights have been snubbed by our Federal Bureaucrats.
Mayor, you have my complete support and appreciation.
Mr. President,
Plese take note, we are being invaded at our borders and we are losing. Get out of Iraq and defend America. Also, we are inundated by sympathetic supporters of grossly illegal activity by groups masquarading as someone defending our rights and liberties. Please let the ACLU know that ILLEGAL aliens do not have any rights under our constitution except they have right to go back to where they came from or the right to go to prison.
JP
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