Town by town: the immigration debate has caught fire at the local level.(NEWS)

AS THE NATION REGROUPS after Congress's failure to deliver national immigration reform this summer, anti-immigrant groups frustrated with federal inaction have shifted their focus to local and regional governments to push through restrictive policies.

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In July, U.S. District Judge James Munley ruled against the Hazleton, Pennsylvania ordinance aimed at restricting undocumented immigrants' access to housing and employment, saying it was unconstitutional. Munley wrote, "Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community. Since the United States Constitution protects even the disfavored, the ordinances cannot be enforced." The decision came at the end of a year's worth of litigation by the ACLU, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Cozen O'Connor and the Community Justice Project.

Hazleton's mayor, Lou Barletta, was spurred to action after a murder and playground gunfire in 2006 was linked to four undocumented immigrants. He drafted the Illegal Immigrant Relief Act that would revoke the business licenses of employers of undocumented immigrants, levy $1,000-per-day fines to landlords with undocumented immigrants living on their property and declare English the official language of the town. Hazleton's ordinance raised concerns with civil rights activists, and the ACLU began leading litigation to challenge the policy and similar ones in seven other municipalities.

The Hazleton ordinance was one of the most comprehensive local anti-immigrant statutes in the nation and the first and most widely publicized of its kind to pass. Other towns have crafted policies modeled on Hazleton's, and some city councils put proceedings in their own towns on hold while they awaited the Hazleton decision and are now retailoring their ...