Hazleton must pay nearly $1.4 million to civil rights attorneys who thwarted the city's immigration law in federal court, U.S. Judge James Munley ruled Tuesday.

Munley of U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in Scranton awarded about half as much as the $2.84 million that the attorneys sought for the case, which began in 2006 and reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hazleton must pay

$1.38 million in fees and $47,594 in costs, Munley said.

The cost of a court battle was one reason why the American Civil Liberties Union and Latino Justice PRLDEF warned the financially troubled city not to enact the law.

"Hazleton knew and its politicians knew all along that if they were sued and lost, there would be a bill to pay at the end," Omar Jadwat, an ACLU attorney assigned to the case from start to finish, said.

Hazleton's law penalized companies that hired immigrants who lacked legal status to work in the country and landlords whose tenants lacked legal residency status.

In addition to the ACLU and Latino Justice, formerly called the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, lawyers from the Philadelphia office of the Cozen O'Connor law firm and the Community Justice Project also helped challenge the law.

The 2007 trial, which led Munley to strike down the law and appeals to a circuit court and the Supreme Court, received international attention. The case also gave Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta a national profile that helped him win the congressional seat he now holds as a Republican in the 11th District of Pennsylvania.

Through a website called smalltowndefenders.com, Hazleton city received donations to pay most of the fees charged by its defense team, headed by attorney Kris Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, but the donations have dried up, and the website is out of service.

Barletta proposed the law, modeled after one drafted but never approved in San Bernardino, California, in the spring of 2006. The previous winter, he went to Washington, D.C., to talk with federal immigration and Justice Department officials but came away without tangible help to deal with the city's crime.

The final push to enact the law occurred on May 10, 2006.

Derek Kichline was murdered in a case for which two immigrants later were deported but not tried, and a 15-year-old immigrant was arrested for shooting a gun in a separate incident at the Pine Street Playground.

City council approved the first of several versions of the immigration law soon after.

Council members Joseph Yannuzzi, Jack Mundie, Evelyn Graham and Tom Gabos supported the law, while Robert Nilles voted against it.

"We felt we were right. We still feel we are right. Of course, they don't agree with us," Yannuzzi, who is now mayor, said.

He hopes to negotiate to spread out the repayment to lessen the strain on the city's budget. Munley's ruling makes the payment due on Jan. 15, 2016, so the two sides have until then to agree on terms.

"The court concludes that this is a reasonable offer because it appears that a payment schedule is best left to the parties to work out themselves," Munley said in the ruling.

As an example of what $1.4 million represents to the city, Yannuzzi said $1 million would pay for 10 new police officers. He floated the idea of holding a referendum on raising property taxes by 1 mill to hire that many officers, but technicalities kept the referendum off the ballot.

"The dollar amount, frankly, pales in comparison to what illegal immigrants are costing Hazleton taxpayers in city services," Barletta said in a statement that said the ruling is still wrong.

Jadwat said he thinks the ACLU and other plaintiffs were justified in asking for $2.84 million, based on the duration of the case, the changes that the city made to the law as the case proceeded and the city's decision to take all possible appeals.

Congress allows for civil rights plaintiffs to recover legal fees, only if they prevail, because their cases may be very complex, Jadwat said.

Several of the plaintiffs were called John Doe and Jane Doe throughout the case because of the fear that identifying them could lead to discrimination or other repercussions against them.

Other plaintiffs were groups such as the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition, the Hazleton Hispanic Business Association and the Dominican House of Hazleton, which has reorganized and chosen new leaders since the trial.

The lead plaintiff, Pedro Lozano, a landlord, was sentenced last year to 28 to 47 months in prison for distributing pictures of child pornography, and at least one of his properties on Diamond Avenue is boarded up.

At the 2007 trial at which Munley presided, the city's attorneys presented evidence that immigrants who weren't authorized to be in the country strained the budgets of the city's government, schools and hospital.

Barletta testified to violent crimes that occurred and said the costs increased for police investigations and overtime.

Attorneys challenging the city, however, pointed out that the police force shrunk as the city's population increased. Vic Walczak of the ACLU said of the 8,571 crimes had occurred between 2001 and 2006 in Hazleton, 20 involved immigrants with questionable status. Of the 428 violent crimes that occurred in that span, immigrants committed two or three, Walczak said.

Munley struck down the provisions relating to landlords and businesses so the law never took effect.

After listening to further arguments in 2008, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld Munley's ruling in 2010.

A year later, the Supreme Court asked the Philadelphia court to reconsider, based on a ruling that upheld a law in Arizona that had similarities to Hazleton.

The Philadelphia court stuck to its original decision, however, and the case died in 2014 when the Supreme Court declined further involvement.

Barletta said Hazleton would have won its case in circuits outside of Philadelphia.

"What is legal today in Arizona or Fremont, Nebraska, is not legal in Hazleton. That's unfair, and the U.S. Supreme Court should step in and fix this patchwork of local laws intended to combat illegal immigration," Barletta said.

Jadwat, however, said the Hazleton case helped create a pattern from the patchwork.

"One thing clear for a long time now, partially because of this case and also because of other cases, is that the path Hazleton chose to go down … is not a path open to cities," he said.

Jadwat said he noticed people in Hazleton have toned down rhetoric about immigration since 2006 and hopes that politicians will reach a consensus, which he thinks a majority of Americans already share, for a commonsense reform of immigration laws.

While preparing for the presidential primaries, candidates are debating whether to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and whether to deport immigrants or provide them a path to legal status.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com