By L.A. TARONE
Staff Writer

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta and the controversial Illegal Immigration Relief Act made their way into President Bush’s speech in Lancaster on Wednesday afternoon.

Bush addressed the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, discussing, among other things, his veto of the bill expanding the State-Children’s Health Insurance (S-CHIP) Program. Congress voted to dramatically expand the program by adding another $35 billion to it over five years, and covering the children of people earning as much as $83,000 annually. Bush favored a smaller expansion of about $5 billion.

By Emily Bazar
USA TODAY

Illegal immigrants living in states and cities that have adopted strict immigration policies are packing up and moving back to their home countries or to neighboring states.

The exodus has been fueled by a wave of laws targeting illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and elsewhere. Many were passed after congressional efforts to overhaul the immigration system collapsed in June.

Immigrants say the laws have raised fears of workplace raids and deportation.

"People now are really frightened and scared because they don't know what's going to happen," says Juliana Stout, an editor at the newspaper El Nacional de Oklahoma. "They're selling houses. They're leaving the country."

HAZLETON, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have charged 40 people, including suspected illegal immigrants and gang members, with bringing cocaine from New York to this eastern Pennsylvania city, already a flash point in the immigration debate.

Officers had arrested about 33 members of the group, which is accused of distributing $31 million worth of the drug over three years, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said Thursday. The investigation is ongoing, Corbett spokeswoman Shonna Clark said Friday.

Investigators tapped phones and listened to hundreds of conversations between the suspected ringleaders and their customers, according to a criminal complaint. Undercover officers made numerous drug buys and worked with confidential informants to make the case, prosecutors said.

By Amy Worden
Inquirer Staff Writer

A 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 who, if convicted, would be deported after serving prison sentences, said Frank Noonan, a regional director for the Attorney General's Office and the agent in charge of the investigation.

When a group of lawyers filed a petition last week to recover the legal costs fighting Hazleton’s illegal immigration law, they may have stripped their work of any nobility it might have once had.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund and other organizations that successfully fought the Hazleton’s ordinance want a federal judge to force the city to pay their legal fees and costs.

The tab is $2.4 million. A total of 37 lawyers and paralegals from seven different law firms and organizations submitted bills showing 5,409 hours of work. If you divide the amount sought by the number of hours, you get an average fee of $444 per hour.

By Milan Simonich
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Thirty-seven attorneys who helped in a lawsuit that toppled immigration ordinances in Hazleton now want the small Luzerne County city to pay their fees, which total almost $2.4 million.

Thomas Wilkinson Jr., one of the lawyers who brought the lawsuit against Hazleton, said the case involved civil rights, so the winning attorneys are entitled under federal law to seek payment from Hazleton for their time and expenses.

Hazleton, in northeastern Pennsylvania, has an annual budget of just $7.5 million and could never pay such a bill, Mayor Louis Barletta said.

BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER

The potential cost of Hazleton's fight to expel illegal immigrants came into focus Friday, and the final bill could be steep.

In a 28-page document filed Friday, the attorneys who successfully challenged the illegal immigration ordinance in court asked a federal judge to force the city to pay their legal fees and costs totaling nearly $2.4 million, which would equal about a third of Hazleton's 2007 budget.

The city will challenge the amount of fees sought by the American Civil Liberties Union, other advocacy groups and private attorneys representing the plaintiffs, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said, calling the $2.4 million total "absurd."

BY JILL WHALEN
STAFF WRITER

The city of Hazleton has filed an appeal of U.S. District Judge James M. Munley’s ruling that its Illegal Immigration Relief Act is unconstitutional.

The appeal was filed Thursday with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

“I think today further proves that the city of Hazleton is not going to roll over and back down,” Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said.

Not only is the city appealing Judge Munley’s main judgment in the case, it is also appealing several of Judge Munley’s pre-trial orders, Mr. Barletta said.

“I feel very confident, and I’m anxious to move this case on to Philadelphia,” Mr. Barletta said.

by Kris W. Kobach

What do you get when you combine unchecked illegal immigration with judicial activism? A perfect storm for the rule of law. Unfortunately, that storm recently arrived in Pennsylvania.

On July 26, 2007, federal Judge James Munley of the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion striking down the efforts of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to address the consequences of illegal immigration within its jurisdiction.

Hazleton -- a small town in the Pocono Mountains with just over 30,000 residents -- had enacted ordinances that prohibited landlords from knowingly renting apartments to illegal aliens and prohibited local businesses from knowingly employing illegal aliens.

By SUSAN E. LINDT and KIM O’BRIEN
Staff Writers

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Hazleton Mayor Louis J. Barletta received a standing ovation after his speech to a packed house Wednesday at a Rotary Club luncheon.

Not everyone, however, was sold on his approach to the problem of illegal immigration.

Outside the Farm and Home Center, where the luncheon was held, about a dozen people, enduring overwhelming heat, gathered to voice their disapproval of his controversial tactics to reduce illegal immigration in his city.

There also was a handful of people who showed up to express their support for Barletta.