Posted on 09/14/2007 2:35:42 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
LANCASTER, Pa. - Leaders from two statewide groups of Latino Republicans are criticizing the Lancaster County Republican Committee for inviting Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta to speak today at a donor luncheon.
Robert S. Nix, chairman of the Pennsylvania Hispanic Republicans, and Luis Mendoza, chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly's Pennsylvania chapter, slammed the local GOP, accusing it of acting against Latino interests.
The two groups shared their concerns with the local GOP this week.
"Personally, being of Mexican descent, I find a lot of (immigration reform) rhetoric really offensive, and I feel increasingly backed into a corner in my own party," Nix said Wednesday during an interview.
The county GOP, however, said the invitation of Barletta is not an endorsement of the mayor or his controversial Hazleton ordinance that would have punished people for doing business with illegal immigrants.
"It's an opportunity to bring in a person who is a newsmaker, to hear what he has to say, and to see if there aren't some discussions that can occur from something like this," Dave Dumeyer, chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Committee, said Wednesday. "But it does not represent any endorsement of his viewpoint."
The luncheon — at the Pressroom Restaurant, Lancaster city, at noon — is by invitation only. Invitees are donors who gave at least $500 to the county GOP.
Mendoza, a former Lancaster city councilman, said Barletta's ordinance was inherently racist, and having the Republican mayor appear in Lancaster was a "slap to the face" of local Latinos.
Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act, passed by City Council and signed by Barletta, called for fining people who rented property to illegal immigrants and suspending the permits of businesses that hire them. It caused intense national interest to focus on the small coal-region town of 23,000 people.
A U.S. District Court in July struck down the act as unconstitutional, holding in part that it was an illegal infringement of federal responsibilities.
The city is appealing.
Nix said he opposes the ordinance because he agrees with the court that illegal immigration is a problem for the federal government to solve.
To allow municipalities to enact their own illegal immigration policies would create "hostile and nonhostile" areas not only for illegal immigrants but lawful immigrants, too, he said.
"We should all be working together to force our Congress to get a backbone and address this issue," Nix said.
Nix and Mendoza said to tackle illegal immigration, they support better border security and the plan put forward by President Bush and a bipartisan Congressional team that would have provided a mechanism for the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States to become citizens.
Opponents labeled the program "amnesty" for people who broke the law. Nix, however, referred to the program as something else. "Nobody is saying amnesty, but what we are saying is something like a plea bargain," he said.
Opponents ultimately derailed the plan in June.
Both said the county GOP, by welcoming Barletta to the luncheon, was pushing Hispanics away from joining the ranks of Republicans.
"The concern we have is these kinds of moves makes it so hard to bring Latinos to the party to join us," Mendoza said.
Dumeyer said he didn't see the situation that way.
"I don't know that to be true or not," he said. "I don't know that to be the case."
Mendoza was unmoved.
"Lou Barletta doesn't necessarily represent the values of the Republican Party," he said.
Because they don't act like citizens.
If they don't like it, there is la puerta.
They can leave the Party as far as I am concerned. Traitors. Our country is being destroyed, our men went up Mt. Surabachi and planted Old Glory for nothing if this country is allowed to be invaded any further from the Southern Border as it horrendously is.
"For the race everything, outside the race Nothing". And they're dead serious.
Not only that but Barletta won both the dem and rep nomination for his office.
Is there anything these reconquista types don’t complain about?
Half of the US population doesn’t act like citizens. Doesn’t mean they aren’t.
Mayor Barletta is an American hero! If he ever runs for national office, he will have my vote. If I lived in Hazleton, PA, he’d sure have my vote without hesitation.
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