A city will get another chance to defend its never-enforced-illegal-immigration law after the Supreme Court ordered an appeals court to reconsider the case.
Citing their recent decision upholding an Arizona employer-sanctions law, the justices threw out a ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prevented the city of Hazleton, Pa., from enforcing regulations that would deny permits to business that hire illegal immigrants and would fine landlords who rent to them.
Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act inspired similar laws around the country, including the one in Arizona. Both measures were written by the same scholar, Kris Kobach, currently Kansas’ secretary of state.
Monday’s order does not automatically mean that Hazleton will get to enforce the measures. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit ruled in September that Hazleton’s laws usurped the federal government’s exclusive power to regulate immigration.
