Supreme Court Orders Lower Court to Re-Examine Hazleton Ruling

The Supreme Court has overturned a lower court’s ruling that stopped a Hazleton, Pa. city ordinance requiring businesses to use E-Verify. The ordinance, signed by former mayor and current Congressman Lou Barletta, prohibits business owners from knowingly hire illegal aliens and prevents landlords from renting to illegal aliens.

Today’s ruling comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling of Arizona’s mandatory E-Verify law that allows the state to revoke the business license of businesses that do not comply with the state’s law.

The Supreme Court has sent the Hazleton case back to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals with instructions to review the matter given the Court’s decision on the Arizona law. 

“Hazleton’s ordinances match the terms and classifications of federal immigration law and require officials to defer to federal determinations of aliens’ immigration statuses,” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told the court. “In drafting the ordinances, the city made every effort to avoid any conflict with federal immigration laws.”