This is no real shock.  The laws as noted below really are just common sense reactions to crack down on businesses who hire illegal aliens, something that is arguably a crime.  Likewise it holds landlords responsible for renting to illegals.

Frankly I don’t see the fuss.  We are talking about people hire or shelter people who have either stayed her past their legal visa and are fugitive, or people who entered illegally and are fugitive.

Town sued over strict immigration law

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Civil rights campaigners sued the Pennsylvania town of Hazleton on Tuesday, seeking to block one of America’s toughest local laws against illegal immigrants.

The suit says Hazelton’s City Council violated the U.S. constitution when it passed a law denying business permits to companies that hire illegal aliens and fining landlords who rent homes to them.

I would love to see their rationale on this.  How does this violate the constitution?

(I researched and have the answer below)

The measure, which also establishes English as the town’s official language, has made Hazleton a focus of the national debate on immigration. The plaintiffs say their suit is the first in the country to challenge a local immigration ordinance.

The suit was filed in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania by groups including the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the        American Civil Liberties Union. They accuse Hazleton of overstepping its authority on the federal matter of immigration and say the law discriminates against immigrants.

No really it does not.  They are not directly affected it addresses those who hire them, and those who rent housing to them.

"This mean-spirited law is wrong for many reasons but the most obvious is that the city does not have the power to make its own immigration laws," Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.

Why not?  This law does not supplant Federal law in anyway, it merely provides for specific relief at a local level.

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, a proponent of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance, says illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America has increased crime, overburdened schools and hospitals, and eroded the quality of life in the town of some 31,000 people.

Barletta predicted the law would survive a court challenge and said he would take it to the Supreme Court if necessary. "We’re not going to be bullied," he said in a statement.

About a third of the Hazelton’s residents are Hispanic, up from around 5 percent in 2000, officials say.

At the federal level, the House and Senate are trying to reconcile starkly different immigration bills that call for tougher border controls and provide routes to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

As a matter of State’s rights and the rights of a Municipality to self govern, I wish them success in the suit.

Now, the ACLU’s formal statement tries to outline their objection, but it still leaves out any really substantive reasons why they protest it.

Read it for yourself and decide.

For my part, I think this is another way that politically correct uber sensitivity is making us afraid to call people who break the law criminals and treat them accordingly.

If you are here illegally, I do not owe you anything except humane treatment as you are processed for deportation, 3 hots and a cot, and comfy bus ride home.

The ACLU and certain special interest groups want to kiss your butts.  I won’t.

Hazleton Residents Sue to Halt Harsh Anti-Immigrant Law

HAZLETON, PA - An ordinance that classifies certain immigrants as "illegal," punishes landlords and employers who do business with those immigrants and makes English the official language is unconstitutional and should be blocked immediately, according to a lawsuit filed today by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, American Civil Liberties Union, the Community Justice Project, the law firm of Cozen O’Connor and local attorneys George Barron, David Vaida, and Barry Dyller.
 
"All this ordinance does is create more tension and hatred between neighbors," said Cesar Perales, President and General Counsel of the PRLDEF. "The city will also face major litigation costs. It is patently illegal for a local municipality to usurp the role of the federal government."
 
Perales cited a report published by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that writes reports for lawmakers, which confirmed that federal law likely precludes Hazleton from enforcing the ordinance.
 
"Hazleton’s anti-immigrant ordinance is bad for the community, is unconstitutional and will foster rampant discrimination," said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. "This mean-spirited law is wrong for many reasons, but the most obvious is that the city does not have the power to make its own immigration laws."
 
Enforcement of the ordinance, approved on July 13, is expected to begin on September 11. The ordinance defines certain persons as "illegal aliens" using a definition so broad that it actually includes many lawful residents and naturalized citizens.  Under the ordinance, property owners are subject to fines of more than $1,000 a day for renting to individuals classified as "illegal aliens," and business owners could be fined and have their licenses suspended for hiring "illegal aliens" either knowingly or unknowingly. In addition, businesses would be barred from selling merchandise to "illegal aliens," including basic necessities such as food.
 
The ordinance would also turn Hazleton into an "English-only" community in which city documents and other written communications would not be available in any language but English unless specifically required by federal or state law.  Also, documents from residents to city officials would have to be written in English. 
 
The groups filed the lawsuit on behalf of 11 Hazleton residents and business owners as well as three non-profits. Plaintiffs include a lifelong Pennsylvanian and U.S. citizen who moved with her husband to Hazleton and opened a small business using her family’s life savings. The business was doing well and the couple became foster parents intent on adopting. Since the passage of the ordinance her business has been cut in half and she can no longer pay the bills. The family has been verbally abused with anti-Latino epithets and is contemplating moving from the area, according to legal papers.
 
In addition to filing the lawsuit, counsel for the plaintiffs today sent a letter to the Mayor and the City Council informing them that litigation can be avoided if the ordinance is repealed.  If the city fails to do so, the court proceedings will be aggressively pursued.
 
"Not only is this law a bull in the china shop of constitutional rights, but it will do real injury to lawful immigrants and even citizens," said Witold Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.  "It makes every person who looks or sounds foreign a suspect, including those who are here legally.  You might as well just paint a target on every foreigners’ forehead or a sign saying ‘please treat me differently.’" 
 
The groups said in legal papers that the ordinance violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause because it seeks to override federal law and the exclusive federal power over immigration.  The ordinance also violates business and property owners’ due process rights under the Constitution because it is nearly impossible for them ensure compliance. In addition, the ordinance’s "English only" provision violates city residents’ First Amendment rights to free speech.
 
In a separate action today the ACLU of Florida, PRLDEF and other local groups opposed similar ordinances in Palm Bay, FL, also on the grounds that local governments cannot usurp federal authority over immigration issues.

I am not sure I would say that enforcing the laws that the feds won’t enforce is really a bad thing.  Since the Federal laws retain force have the usurped anything?

We shall see.

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