HAZLETON, Pa. _ U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta slowed his GMC Denali on East Chestnut Street to tell the story of how Derek Kichline died and a law to restrict illegal immigration was born.
It is a story Barletta has been telling for a dozen years, the cornerstone to a political career that has taken him from mayor of Hazleton to the U.S. House and now to be the Republican nominee challenging U.S. Sen. Bob Casey's bid for a third term.
Kichline was working on his car in front of his house one night in 2006, Barletta said earlier this month, when two men approached. One raised a gun and fired a shot at close range into Kichline's head, killing him.
The men were in the country illegally from the Dominican Republic, and police told local media they were involved in drug dealing.
The murder shocked this town of 25,000, 82 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Barletta, who was mayor at the time, pushed for a local ordinance making it illegal for employers to hire and landlords to rent to anyone in this country illegally.
It was approved by a 4-1 vote 64 days after Kichline was killed, amid a wave of immigration _ legal and illegal _ that was changing the face of Hazleton, in the anthracite coal region.
Barletta's story _ us-vs.-them, small-town go-it-alone anger and angst _ established and defined his political brand and would eventually catch the eye of a New York developer running for president with a platform heavy with controversial claims about illegal immigration.
It was President Donald Trump who, in a June 2017 phone call, first urged Barletta to challenge Casey.
Casey, appearing eager to have a fight with Trump and Barletta, has highlighted their close connection and agreement on the issue of illegal immigration.
So Kichline's story will be told some more.
But two elements are sometimes left out of the telling.
The men accused in Kichline's killing were released after the case against them fell apart.
And the law Barletta pushed in Kichline's name was never enforced _ not for a single day _ because a federal judge stepped in to immediately block it.
Barletta's law was good for his political future but a colossal failure for his financially strapped hometown, prompting a decadelong federal court battle with a legal bill that reached nearly $1.7 million.
