SCRANTON -- Hazleton City Council President Joseph Yannuzzi testified yesterday that he still believes in the city's immigration ordinances, even though they have undergone nine rewrites in nine months.

Mr. Yannuzzi said Hazleton's immigration laws will be reworked again tomorrow to remove a few words that opponents say contain improper racial or ethnic references. The laws, on the books in one form or another since July, have not been enforced because of a federal lawsuit claiming they are unconstitutional.

Civil rights groups that are challenging Hazleton's laws say immigration is the province of the U.S. government, not a small Eastern Pennsylvania city that does not have the means to determine whether a newcomer is in the country legally.

Opponents of the Hazleton laws called Mr. Yannuzzi as a hostile witness and put him through a two-hour grilling yesterday afternoon. Mr. Yannuzzi, 68, could barely be heard as he sparred with Tom Wilkinson, a Philadelphia lawyer representing opponents of the Hazleton laws.

Mr. Yannuzzi said he saw ordinances targeting illegal immigrants as a way to curtail violent crime. Never, he said, did he expect the laws to put Hazleton at center stage of the national debate about immigration policy.

Under questioning by Mr. Wilkinson, he admitted he did not know how many police officers Hazleton employs or what its crime rate is. Mr. Yannuzzi said he did not even know Hazleton's population, though he has lived there all his life. (Mayor Louis Barletta says it's 31,000, including some 9,000 newcomers, but the U.S. Census Bureau lists it at 22,000.)

Even though Mr. Yannuzzi knew few particulars about his city's demographics or its police force, he said one point he is sure of is that violent crime is up in Hazleton. In addition, he said, the suspects in a murder last spring are illegal immigrants.

The Hazleton City Council, at the urging of Mr. Barletta, approved the immigration ordinances after the murder case drained the city police budget of overtime pay that was supposed to last half the year.

The laws would fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and revoke the licenses of businesses that hire them.

Any renter also would have to appear at city hall to obtain an occupancy permit by documenting that he is in the country legally.

U.S. District Judge James Munley, who is presiding over the Hazleton trial, blocked the laws from taking effect until the question of whether they are constitutional can be settled in court.

Hazleton lawyers tried to prevent Mr. Yannuzzi from being questioned about how the immigration ordinances were created, but that brought an angry rebuke from Judge Munley.

He said Mr. Yannuzzi could not be shielded from interrogation, and he blistered Hazleton's legal team for submitting last-minute filings to keep him off the witness stand.

"I don't like being ambushed," Judge Munley said.

Mr. Wilkinson said Mr. Barletta copied a defeated law in San Bernadino, Calif., and used it as the basis of Hazleton's immigration ordinances. Mr. Yannuzzi said he was uncertain where the law came from, though he had heard it originated in California.

Opponents say Hazleton's laws have been reshaped by national groups such as the Immigration Reform Law Institute, whose lawyers are helping the city at trial. Mr. Yannuzzi said he did not know how the many rewrites of Hazleton's laws came about, other than the city solicitor said they were necessary to ward off challenges.

Mr. Barletta will take the stand today, also as a hostile witness. He said in an interview that he was dismayed over allegations that the laws were racially motivated.

"I am Italian and my family is in construction," the mayor said. "I don't object when laws are enforced against organized crime figures who happen to be Italian and in the construction business. Most Hispanics in Hazleton don't object to what I am doing because they appreciate that I want to make the city safer for them."