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Barletta ready to talk immigration—and raise money off it

Just a few weeks after it seemed that Republican Lou Barletta wouldn’t talk much about his signature issue of immigration this year, the possibility of legislative action in Washington has pushed the issue back to the forefront—and Barletta is ready to use the turn of events to raise money for his congressional run in the 11th District.

Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, e-mailed supporters on Tuesday charging that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intend to grant amnesty to the country’s illegal immigrants.

“Amnesty is going to have a disastrous impact on America,” Barletta wrote. “The only way to stop this is by having the votes in Congress to strike Amnesty down. But, that will only happen if candidates like me get elected to cast NO votes for any Amnesty bill.”

Barletta has said that he doesn’t intend to make immigration the focal issue of his candidacy, telling pa2010.com recently that, when planning “my campaign I don’t even talk about it.” But the e-mail underscored that, if national debate allows, Barletta will seize on the issue that brought him national publicity when he pushed tough local ordinances to crack down on illegal immigrants. Vince Galko, a senior political adviser to Barletta, called it a “huge issue.”

“You can’t deal with any big issue facing America today without immigration being part of that equation,” Galko said.

Barletta is trying to unseat incumbent Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) for the third time in eight years.

April 27, 2010 at 8:52 pm

--Donald Hoegg

Tags: Lou Barletta, PA-11, Paul Kanjorski

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