Court Overturns Pennsylvania Immigration Ordinance

A U.S. appeals court has overturned a Pennsylvania city’s law that called for the punishment of landlords and employers that rent to or hire undocumented immigrants.

The court ruled that the regulation of immigrants is “clearly within the exclusive domain of the federal government.”

The overturning of the law repeals a four-year-old ordinance instituted in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and the court’s ruling was one of many that points out the federal government sets and enforces immigration law, not states or localities.

“Deciding which aliens may live in the United States has always been the prerogative of the federal government,” said Judge Theodore McKee of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. “If Hazleton can regulate as it has here, then so could every other state or locality.”