Barletta joins Notre Dame forum

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta will be in Indiana today to participate in a forum on illegal immigration at the University of Notre Dame.

Barletta, a Republican running for a third term as mayor, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, will share their views on illegal immigration and perhaps challenge those of U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, and Roger Cardinal Michael Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles.

Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” will moderate the debate.

“I expect a very lively and interesting discussion on the pros and cons of illegal immigration and the effects it has on Americans,” Barletta said last week.

Tim Matovina, a professor of theology at Notre Dame and the forum coordinator, said the university hosts forums annually for the benefit of the students to engage them in a national issue.

He said he wanted the panel to be as diverse as possible, including Democrats and Republicans.

“This is playing itself out at not only the national and state levels, but at the local level,” Matovina said in explaining the inclusion of three of the panelists.

“And we wanted to look at how Catholic social teaching may enter into the conversation,” given that Notre Dame is a Catholic university, Matovina said.

“These are people who have been on ‘60 Minutes’ and other big shows, and people who have been following this issue know who they are,” he said.

Barletta has been interviewed by numerous national and international media outlets since he asked city council to pass the Illegal Immigration Relief Act and Landlord/Tenant Registration ordinances in June 2006.

The laws, which were struck down in federal court in August, would have fined landlords and suspended licenses of businesses that knowingly rented to or employed illegal immigrants, and would have required all renters living in the city to show proof of legal residency status.

Barletta said the laws were necessary because illegal immigrants were overcrowding schools, causing long waits at hospital emergency rooms, draining city resources and adding to the crime problem. The city has appealed the judge’s decision.

Reached by cell phone on his way to a speaking engagement in Monroe County, Barletta said he has spoken on Hazleton’s battle against illegal immigration in many other Pennsylvania counties, rattling off Adams, Berks, Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Mifflin, Monroe, Indiana and Warren to name a few.

“The purpose of my speaking at so many events … is to raise money for Hazleton’s (Legal) Defense Fund. Every time I do a speaking engagement, I’m able to raise money. The plaintiffs’ lawyers are trying to bankrupt the city. I’m doing this so Hazleton can continue its fight,” he said.

Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, The Community Justice Project, the Cozen O’Conner law firm and several private attorneys are representing several Latino organizations and individuals in a lawsuit filed against the city in October 2006. Those attorneys are seeking nearly $2.4 million in legal fees from the city.

Political pundits and Barletta’s opponents have speculated that the mayor has been using the publicity and accepting speaking engagements to his personal advantage, grooming himself for a run for higher office – a charge that the mayor denies.

While Barletta said he is not currently considering a run for higher office, he said it would be “dishonest” of him to try and guarantee that he wouldn’t consider leaving the mayor’s office mid-term for a higher elected office.

“It’s something I would only consider if I felt that I could make a difference in that particular office. I’m not interested in doing it simply because I would have a higher profile,” he said.

“There are people who would like to see me run for Congress or for governor in 2010. It’s not something I’m sitting at home and planning or thinking about. But I wouldn’t be honest if I said I’d never consider it,” Barletta said.

“If I played let’s make believe, I would look at higher office and ask what I could accomplish. If I were in Washington, I would work very hard on immigration problems, energy problems, Americans losing jobs due to outsourcing to other countries, farmers having to sell their farms to developers because they can’t compete. If I imagined myself in that office, those would be some of the things that would drive me,” he said.

If he did run for a higher office, Barletta said he would make a list of goals he would want to accomplish in a particular office.

“But if I didn’t feel I could make a difference in the lives of the people I was representing, I wouldn’t run. I’m very happy being the mayor of Hazleton, and I could imagine myself doing this for a very long time,” Barletta said.

TO LEARN MORE

Visit http://forum.nd.edu for more information on today’s immigration forum at the University of Notre Dame. And go to www.smalltowndefenders.com for more information about donating to Hazleton’s Legal Defense Fund.

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