That Hazleton, an otherwise unremarkable blue-collar town in Eastern Pennsylvania, should become ground zero in America's battle over illegal immigration should be a wake-up call to Congress. In a national leadership vacuum, local politicians can seize the initiative in unproductive ways, as Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta has done.

To state the obvious: The United States needs secure borders. Many Americans are frustrated and fearful that the border, especially with Mexico, has become a sieve. In towns such as Hazleton, which locals feel has been changed by an influx of Latino immigrants, resentments are riding high.

But the problem is a national one, and so is the solution, which has been obvious to President Bush and enlightened members of Congress -- secure the borders once and for all and normalize the status of the 12 million or so illegals already here. Unfortunately, illegal immigrants have become popular scapegoats for every ill.

Proving that every Main Street in America can have its own demagogue, Mayor Barletta has championed an ordinance that is all about punishing immigrants, ostensibly illegal ones, although inevitably all come under the same cloud of suspicion.

Welcome to Hazleton! Prospective renters must obtain a residency permit, which burdens municipal workers with new duties: checking whether renters are really U.S. citizens. Landlords who don't follow the law will be fined $1,000 a day. Companies employing illegal immigrants will lose their business licenses for five years. And, of course, English is declared the official language.

Hazleton is a million miles from the America that once welcomed the "poor and huddled masses" -- and profited hugely by their presence. Mr. Barletta, who appears to have greater political ambitions, is buoyed by the support he has received around the country, but then America has never been short of nativists. They know a friend when they see one.

For once such poison seeps out, there is no containing it to those who are illegal. As Post-Gazette writer Milan Simonich reported Sunday, a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, a U.S. citizen for 18 years, has endured taunts to "go back where you came from."

If that anti-foreigner attitude prevails, America can forget competing in the global market and its greatness will be reduced one Hazleton at a time. Congress needs to act.