Mayor Lou Barletta gets it.

Little Hazelton, PA is on the front line of the war against the illegal immigrant invasion.

The Morning Call: Hazleton mayor says immigration law aimed at all ethnic groups

The illegal immigrants Hazleton has targeted in a new ordinance are Hispanics, but Mayor Lou Barletta said Monday that people with his own Italian ancestry would get the same unfriendly reception if they violated U.S. immigration laws in moving to the city.

''I hope I catch an illegal Italian — I do — just so I could prove that it doesn't matter to me,'' he told reporters after addressing about 100 business people, lobbyists and reporters at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon.

Unless he's a chef or a tailor, of course.

The ordinance that has gained Barletta and Hazleton national notoriety would punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants and landlords who rent to them. It has been approved by City Council and is scheduled to take effect Nov. 1.

An earlier version of the ordinance was set aside last month after the American Civil Liberties Union and Hispanic activists sued in federal court to overturn it as discriminatory and unworkable. The current version, designed to better withstand a legal challenge, puts the burden of verifying immigration status on the city, and gives businesses and landlords time to correct violations.

Since Hazleton adopted the original ordinance, about 40 other municipalities around the country have adopted similar laws or are considering them, Barletta said.

A Republican in his second term, Barletta reiterated that a recent influx of illegal immigrants has caused increases in violent crime and strained municipal services. He pointed to blown-up newspaper headlines that flanked him as evidence of that criminal activity, but declined to say what percentage of the city's crime he attributes to illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants were involved in all three of the murders committed in Hazleton in the past 18 months, he said.

''I don't need a number,'' he said. ''Numbers are important mostly to people from the outside who are trying to understand what's happening. But if you lived in the city of Hazleton and you woke up to morning news such as this, you would understand that we have a major immigration problem.''

Barletta said the illegal immigrants involved in criminal activity in Hazleton have all been Hispanics, mostly from the Dominican Republic. He stressed that the ordinance is not aimed at a particular ethnic group but rather at rooting out foreigners who have entered the country illegally, adding to the pressure on police and other government services intended for citizens.

Barletta claimed some of the illegal immigrants who were living in Hazleton have moved — ''some in the middle of the night, actually'' — in anticipation of the ordinance taking effect.

People from every state have sent donations totaling more than $35,000 to a legal defense fund that the city established to help defray the cost of a court battle that Barletta said will ''probably go as far as the Supreme Court.''