On July 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected Hazleton, Pennsylvania's anti-immigrant housing and employment ordinances as unconstitutional. 

The ordinances would have prevented undocumented immigrants from being able to rent housing, and would have sanctioned residents and  businesses who engaged in a wide range of commercial transactions with those who could not prove that they were federally authorized to work. (The law defines businesses so vaguely that someone could be sanctioned for buying lemonade from a stand or items at a garage sale.) 

If this all sounds familiar it is because the law was struck down in 2007, when Hazleton gained its renown as the the first municipality to try to drive its immigrant — mostly Latino — residents out. The city appealed the federal trial court's decision, and lost again the federal appeals court in 2010.

After the Supreme Court's decision on Arizona's SB 1070 law, the city of Hazleton saw the opportunity to appeal the decision again in 2012.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and LatinoJustice PRLDEF, among others, have challenged Hazleton's ordinances since 2006. According to LatinoJustice PRLDEF's general counsel, Juan Cartagena, "It's time for Hazelton – and other municipalities and states – to stop trying to harass Latino immigrants out of existence."

The legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Witold Walczak, echoes the assesment. "This has always been a thinly veiled effort by a city to change immigration laws and fortunately the court once again saw through it," he said after the July 26th decision.

But Hazleton Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi wants to appeal to the Supreme Court, and since the city's legal costs are being covered by private donations it'll probably happen. So the saga of Hazleton is over, for the moment, again.