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<h1 class="headline">Hazelton's alien law one of several stirring national debate</h1>
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</p></p></font></td></tr></tbody></table><span class="boldgrey">By <a class="headlinelink3" href="mailto:mhouser@tribweb.com"><b>Mark Houser</b></a><br>TRIBUNE-REVIEW<br></span><span class="greytext"><i>Sunday, May 27, 2007
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<div id="storyBody">Spurred by the efforts of a small Eastern Pennsylvania city to keep out illegal aliens, a federal judge is preparing what likely will be a landmark ruling on one of the country's most controversial topics. At issue is whether Hazleton -- a city of about 30,000, including thousands of Hispanic immigrants who have arrived in the last few years -- can fine employers who hire illegal aliens and landlords who rent to them.
U.S. District Judge James Munley heard the nine-day trial in Scranton in March and is expected to rule this summer.
<p>Whatever he decides isn't likely to close the question. Both sides have said they are ready to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. The dispute, which has made Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta a minor celebrity, is just one of several triggered by recent waves of Latin American immigration. Critics denounced the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month, when the agency sued the Salvation Army for discrimination after a Boston-area store fired two workers for not learning English. And Kansas this month became the 27th state -- the third in less than a year -- to declare English its official language.
<p>"People are getting more and more nervous with everything they're seeing daily. Everywhere they go, they find people who can't speak English," said Mauro Mujica, chairman of U.S. English, a Washington advocacy group promoting laws like the one in Kansas. Mujica said immigrants should have to learn English, as he did before coming here in 1963 from Chile to study architecture. He settled permanently, married an American and became a citizen.
<p>"It doesn't make sense to automatically say, 'Hey buddy, you can take your driver's exam in 30 different languages.' That would be money far better spent teaching English," Mujica said. Riding a wave of popularity for his tough stance against illegal aliens, Barletta, a two-term Republican mayor, easily won his party's primary this month. Barletta also entered the Democratic primary as a last-minute write-in candidate, and handily beat a former mayor who had been alone on his party's ballot.
<p>What's happening in Hazleton is not the first time immigration has upended Pennsylvania politics. German-speaking settlers -- the Pennsylvania Dutch -- voted Benjamin Franklin out of the colonial assembly in 1764 for questioning their loyalty. Franklin's opponents prodded the German immigrants, who then constituted a third of Pennsylvania's population, with an essay in which Franklin called them "boors."
<p>"Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them... ?" Franklin wrote. Franklin might be relieved to see his state today. Only 9 percent of Pennsylvania's population speaks a language other than English at home, about half the national rate, according to 2005 census estimates. Forty percent of those, or about 400,000, are Spanish speakers, with 6 in 10 saying they also speak English well. Those who can't the language face obvious barriers finding work. Which barriers are reasonable, and which are not, is hotly disputed.
<p>In the Boston Salvation Army case, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is challenging the charity's English-only policy under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The commission interprets national origin to include language, and holds that employers can restrict employee communications to English-only when doing so is necessary for business. The commission receives 100 to 200 complaints each year alleging discrimination because of an English-only rule. Fewer than five complaints a year lead to lawsuits, said spokesman David Grinberg. Those few can be quite contentious.
<p>Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told the commission's director at an appropriations hearing this month that its lawsuit against the Salvation Army is "an astonishing waste of your time, and contrary to everything I know about the importance of achieving unity in our country." The Supreme Court has not ruled on English-only restrictions, but federal courts have tended to side with employers. Courts long have held that employers can't justify firing black workers by claiming their customers don't like blacks. But a New York federal court in 2005 ruled that a perfume retailer could forbid employees from speaking Spanish when customers might overhear them, for fear it would drive away business.
<p>"There are fine lines to be drawn, in some cases, as to what's customer preference and what's a legitimate business need," said Dianna Johnston, an assistant legal counsel for the commission, who helps set agency policy on Title VII issues. Some courts have claimed the commission's guidelines overstep Title VII. A Philadelphia federal court did so in 1998, when it struck down a discrimination lawsuit brought by Jessie Kania, a housekeeper fired from her job at a church for speaking Polish.
<p>Pennsylvania is not one of the 27 states with official English laws, which generally strip funding for the use of other languages in official government business. Most laws have exceptions such as public safety, courtroom interpreters and adherence to federal rules. Alaska's law has been ruled unconstitutional by the state's highest court. Arizona voters last fall approved a revised law after an earlier version was ruled unconstitutional. Some Republican legislators have pushed for a federal English law for more than a decade without success. Along with fines aimed at employers and landlords of illegal aliens, Hazleton officials passed another ordinance making English the official language for city business. It already is in the schools.
<p>Hazleton Area School District has seen its English as a Second Language program quadruple to more than 800 students in the last five years. In some elementary schools, Spanish-speaking students make up nearly one-quarter of total enrollment. "It's not just they're learning our ways. We have to learn their ways a little bit, too," said Daniel Cassarella, director of elementary education. A lifelong Hazleton resident, Cassarella, 61, has a special insight into the city's new demographics.
<p>His wife, after taking time off to rear their children, took a part-time job in the district about 17 years ago helping its lone ESL teacher. Now she is one of 22 full-time ESL instructors. "And we need more," Cassarella said. "We're really understaffed." After experimenting with bilingual education programs, California, Arizona and Massachusetts have banned them in recent years, requiring immigrant children to be taught solely in English.
<p>Supporters of bilingual education tout studies showing that taking some classes in their native tongue helps students learn English faster. Opponents claim test scores of immigrants in English-only schools are rising faster than they did under bilingual programs. Pennsylvania schools can offer bilingual education, but few do, according to Education Department spokeswoman Nicole Rob.
<p>Although it is out of fashion now, bilingual education got its start in Pennsylvania with the help of an unexpected ally -- Ben Franklin. Years after the Pennsylvania Dutch helped kick Franklin out of office, he and his detractors reconciled. In 1787, a month before the aging statesman persuaded quarrelsome state delegates to adopt the
U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, Franklin donated a large sum to found America's first bilingual college in Lancaster. The school built to assimilate the state's German-speaking minority was named Franklin College -- now Franklin and Marshall -- after its benefactor.
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