Chatter but no sense of closure in Hazleton

HAZLETON, Pa. - "Decision Day," proclaimed the splashy front-page headline of the local newspaper. Hopeful red-white-and-blue ribbons festooned the steps of City Hall. On nearby streets, television satellite trucks swarmed and waited.

For a few hours yesterday, it seemed all of Hazleton was poised for the federal court ruling in the nation's premier immigration case.

"Hi, Mayor. Did you take your vitamins today? You're going to need them," Cherie Homa, assistant to Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, purred into the phone to her boss, who was scrambling back to these Pocono foothills from a family vacation at the Delaware shore.

By noon, Barletta, deeply tanned and wearing a crisp white shirt, red tie, and navy pin stripes, was endlessly on message, telling reporter after reporter, "This city is diverse in its ethnic background. We will continue to welcome new immigrants. But illegal is illegal." Or, alternatively, "I want to help everybody. But I want to help citizens first."

At Francesca Multi-Service and Travel, a combination shipper, travel agency, remittance delivery service, and five-booth international call center frequented by the town's large population of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, proprietor Meledy Diaz, 40, chatted with Angie Zapata, 36, also a Dominican immigrant.

Diaz, a married mother of three, came to the United States from Santo Domingo in 1983 and lived in New York City for 21 years before moving to Hazleton. Zapata entered the United States four years ago, lived in Paterson, N.J., and moved alone to Hazleton three months ago seeking a job she has yet to find as a factory packer. She said she had heard through the Latina grapevine that Hazleton was an affordable place to live and had two nearby industrial parks with lots of jobs.

Diaz's English was accented but flawless. Zapata favored Spanish, so Diaz translated for her.

"It's better for the people if this ordinance fails," Zapata said, referring to the local law passed a year ago in Hazleton that makes it a crime to employ or rent property to undocumented immigrants.

"The problem is the people who don't have the green card" that gives permanent residency and employment eligibility in the United States, Diaz said. "They are in trouble. They need to make a living. They need to support their families. But it's hard for them."

About an hour after Zapata and Diaz's conversation, word arrived from the federal court in Scranton that Judge James Munley had struck down every provision of Hazleton's law as unconstitutional because it infringed on the federal government's prerogative to set immigration policy and law.

There were no parades by jubilant immigrants. There were no dirges by saddened supporters of the law. With Barletta vowing to appeal, there wasn't even a sense of closure.

Yesenia Hernandez, 29, a utility company employee, said, "I don't think [overturning the law] will necessarily calm things down. Not even the U.S. government can stop illegal immigration. I just don't think this will ever be resolved."

Born in Newark, N.J., to parents who came to the United States from Puerto Rico, Hernandez moved to Hazleton seven years ago on the advice of a friend who told her it was a nice place to live.

That was about the time of Hazleton's first big Hispanic influx. Eventually, Latinos came to make up an estimated 30 percent of the town's population of about 30,000, officials say.

For longtime residents - so many of them Irish that a downtown neighborhood was known as Donegal Hill after the county in Ireland where many were born - the Latino influx has been overwhelming.

"We're citizens. What are we supposed to do?" said Rodney McAfee, a retired warehouse worker. "It's not right. With these judges, all you need is a swipe of the pen and a smack of the gavel to thwart the will of the people."

"I understand the people who have been here their whole lives who now feel threatened," Hernandez said. But she believes many of them are misinformed because local media tend to focus on crimes committed by immigrants and not the positive contributions that many of them make.

"All the bad is focused on us. They never focus on the good we do. I remember walking down Wyoming Street when I moved here. There were barely any shops," she said. Now, she said, immigrant shopkeepers are bringing the business district back.

Alejandrena DeLeon was window-shopping with her 5-year-old grandchild Maricarme, who came to the United States with her mother four months ago. The grandmother said she wants to raise and educate the child here.

That's the sort of decision by an increasing number of immigrants that puts a big burden on the local school system and on city services, Barletta said.

To defend the city in court against challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union, and to press on with Hazleton's appeal, Barletta set up a national fund-raising effort and a Web site, www.smalltowndefenders.com. The group has raised several hundred thousand dollars, he said.

"I'm sure the ACLU hopes this little city runs out of money," Barletta said. "But this little city has a big heart."

And national support keeping the issue alive in one of America's most gripping social-policy debates.