Immigrant Law's Foes Seek Legal Fees (ACLU shakedown of Hazleton, PA)

The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | August 31, 2007 | Michael Rubinkam

[Dems_R_Losers]

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 fund, of which about $150,000 has been spent.

The plaintiffs' petition "illustrates the circus the ACLU brought to this case," Barletta said. "They had 20 attorneys sitting in the courtroom at a time, 16 of them doing nothing but running up the bill."

The petition lists 37 lawyers as having worked on the case, most of them from the Philadelphia firm Cozen O'Connor, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

They billed a total of 7,613 hours.

The lawyers defended their fee request as reasonable, saying the city repeatedly amended its ordinance in an effort to put it on sounder legal footing - making more work for them.

Hazleton, a city of 30,000 about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia, had sought to impose fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and deny business permits to companies that give them jobs. Another measure would have required tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.

Hazleton's act was copied by dozens of municipalities around the nation that contend the federal government hasn't done enough to stop illegal immigration.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Unbelievable.

[bill1952]

Completely believable. This is their main tactic and it works very, very, well.

And you pay for the ACLU with your tax dollars to take your tax dollars.

[Travis McGee]

U.S. Constitution, Article 4 Section 4:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,

and shall protect each of them against Invasion;"

---

Invasion: \In*va"sion\, n. [L. invasio: cf. F. invasion. See Invade.] [1913 Webster]

1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.

QUISLING: a synonym for traitor, someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.

Current federal law 8USC 1373(a) PROHIBITS SANCTUARY CITIES. It reads as follows:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of federal, state, or local law, a federal, state, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual."

[edcoil]

Why or how can all these federal judges be striking down all this city and state laws? Isn’t this a 1-th amendment issue?

[gubamyster]

ping

[stephenjohnbanker]

The ACLU is now out to bankrupt the city of Hazelton.

They are Publc Enemy # 1 !!

[VideoDoctor]

Simply put:
The city of Hazelton is trying to UPHOLD the laws that exist...
The ACLU is attempting to thwart that effort.

Solution: Nothing new here.. Shakespeare already said it.
"KILL ALL THE LAWYERS".

[Haddit]

http://www.nosanctuary.org/

Proposed Charter Amendment

The Charter of the City of Los Angeles shall prohibit its Elected Officials, Appointed Representatives, and or Commissioners from adopting any ordinance, policy, procedure and/ or practice that violates the Laws of the Untied States. This shall be directed to but not limited to any ordinances, policies and procedures that violate the immigration laws of the United States of America.

In addition, all Elected Officials, Appointed Representatives and Commissioners shall be required to rescind any and all ordinances, policies and procedures currently in place that are counterproductive to and violate the Laws of the United States of America.

Police and other law enforcement officials shall not be prohibited, penalized or discouraged in any way from investigating and reporting violations of federal law, including without limitation federal immigration law.

Any Elected Official, Appointed Representative and/or Commissioner who willfully violates, obstructs and/or impedes the implementation and or enforcement of said Charter Amendment, will be deemed in violation of the Charter Amendment and shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

In addition to, but not dependant upon, any criminal penalty, as a result of said violation, said Elected Official, Appointed Representative and/or Commissioner will be in violation of their oath of office and will be required to resign their position.

Proposed Charter Amendment to be voted on the by the registered voters of Los Angeles and become effective upon the simple majority voting in the affirmative.

[CottonBall]

Completely believable. This is their main tactic and it works very, very, well.

A similar tactic that union thugs and the Mafia use. Intimidation. Now, few other cities will be trying to enforce any illegal immigration laws for fear the ACLU will make them their next target. This country is on it's last legs if everyone caves.

[ArmstedFragg]

The only reason the tactic works is the ‘private attorney general’ provision of the Civil Rights Act. Efforts to eliminate that provision are regularly shot down in Congress. A similar provision in California law permitted shakedowns of thousands of businesses until the citizens finally repealed the act by referendum. Sadly, there’s no similar means for the citizens to directly deal with the consequences of so-called representative federal legislators who fail to represent the citizens.

[AmericanInTokyo]

If this major national problem is not solved peacefully, orderly and quickly, which I think is the best option, but instead the liberals latching on to judicial tyranny continue to thwart the peaceful will of the vast majority of the people, it will only repress more deeply and increase exponentially frustration and will put us on the road to violence. I wish these libs, who think they are clever, could read the tea leaves and understand the long range implications of them forestalling the inevitable--large scale self-repatriations and deportations.

[OneHun]

I think liberals and the ACLU are playing with fire. Law abiding citizens are ready to lose their temper. Americans will not accept the ‘balkanization’ of the US.

[AmericanInTokyo]

This is exactly what is coming.

We have a template of this kind of thing happening in exactly the same way, when looking at some other countries around the world in recent history with similiar internal demographic and political situations that, could have been worked out, but devolved into out and out civil war.

The libs think they are being clever, but they are only starting to engineer the beginning of something that will surprise a great many people.

[OneHun]

These liberals/socialists should be put on defensive position all the time, and eventually pushed out from their existing power. Too much damage occurred already, because of them. I don’t understand what people are waiting for? Maybe some went through too many ‘cucumber’ classes, diversity classes, and other PC classes, instead of studying real American and World history, and geography.

[CottonBall]

If this major national problem is not solved peacefully, orderly and quickly, which I think is the best option, but instead the liberals latching on to judicial tyranny continue to thwart the peaceful will of the vast majority of the people, it will only repress more deeply and increase exponentially frustration and will put us on the road to violence. I wish these libs, who think they are clever, could read the tea leaves and understand the long range implications of them forestalling the inevitable--large scale self-repatriations and deportations.

You are so right. People are slowly beginning to understand the ramifications of illegal immigration, now that illegals are everywhere. More and more people will start to understand how much illegals cost them in terms of taxes for social services, culture, decline of education, and very importantly, crime. Even though the MSM tries to hide this information, I trust that people will understand what they see for themselves (for those that don't access the internet for news). The anger and frustration is spreading like wildfire. It's stupid and blind for the government to ignore it and think they can impose their agenda against the will of the people for very long.

[mewzilla]

Extortion perpetrated by lawyers.

[AmericanInTokyo]

This is very true. That is why we should watch them as they make parallel moves to restrict the Second Ammendment even further, because with all the disdain they have for the average American who is in the majority on this issue, they also have fear about his autonomy in great part guaranteed under the Second Ammendment.

So they will work on that front as well as the front of turning us in to a Democratic Party dictatorship ensured by the illegal votes of millions who will be here to turn the USA into a third world nation, a massive Gravy Train in perpetuity.

[CottonBall]

a massive Gravy Train in perpetuity

I think the Romans learned there is no such thing. Eventually, the entire country comes crashing down.