Anti-Immigrant Law Challenged

Hazleton, Pennsylvania, would restrict housing and employment

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today to uphold earlier rulings blocking the city of Hazleton's anti-immigrant law.

"Hazleton's local ordinances, which sought to legislate hostility towards immigrants, have repeatedly failed the constitutional test since they were passed in 2006," said Omar Jadwat, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, who presented arguments this morning on behalf of the plaintiffs. "We hope that this will be the final chapter in the city's misguided quest to scapegoat its own residents, and a lesson for the cities and states that have followed Hazleton down this unjustifiable path."