Trial tests law on illegal immigration

By Jon Hurdle

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania town's anti-illegal-immigration law created a climate of fear in which businesses failed and people moved out, a lawyer argued on Monday as a trial seen as a test of U.S. immigration policy began.

The result of the case, the first federal trial over whether local jurisdictions can make their own laws on illegal immigration, is expected to affect cities and towns across the United States as the country debates what to do with the 12 million illegal aliens estimated to be inside its borders.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Vic Walczak said the city of Hazleton and its mayor, Lou Barletta, violated the U.S. Constitution in passing the ordinance because only the federal government has the right to make immigration law.

"The city has been terrified not by illegal immigrants but by the ordinance, and by Mr. Barletta's rhetoric," Walczak told U.S. District Judge James Munley, who will decide whether the law is constitutional.

Lawyers for the city of 30,000 counter that Hazleton needs the law to combat a rise in crime and increased public spending that have accompanied the influx of Latino immigrants.

Hazleton's attorney Kris Kobach contended the town did not infringe the federal government's authority to regulate immigration, and is entitled to protect itself from the effects of illegal immigration.

The law, passed in July 2006, has not been implemented because of a court injunction won by opponents.

It would fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and suspend the business licenses of employers who hire them.