Prince William County Immigration Policy In Plan to be Taken Statewide

Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart is leading a movement called the Virginia Rule of Law Campaign in an effort to encourage state lawmakers to implement the county's Illegal Immigration Enforcement Policy statewide. The law would allow any Virginia locality to train local police to act as immigration agents and question arrested people about their residency status.

"I have been traveling around Virginia, encouraging state delegates, senators, and trying to create a grassroots movement," Stewart said. "For now, I have moved on to different issues for Prince William. I'm focusing now on the economic growth and conditions of the county, and making it a more business friendly place."

In 2007, the Prince William Board of Supervisors passed the controversial law, amid community criticism that predicted the law would lead to racial profiling, broken trust with law enforcement, and an atmosphere of racism in the community. According to legal coordinator Nancy Lyall for Mexicans Without Borders, the policy has chased Hispanic residents away.

"It's been a horrendous fiasco for the Hispanic community in Prince William," Lyall said. "People have panicked and left."

On Nov. 17, board members saw the results of a University of Virginia study on the overall performance of the law. The study, which cost the county about $344,000, showed that although it is impossible to pinpoint the exact number of illegal immigrants leaving the county, circumstantial evidence led to conclude that the policy did reduce the number. The study also said the housing crash and economic crisis were major factors as well.

The study stated that some crimes dropped and between 2,000 and 6,000 illegal immigrants did leave the county, although it is impossible to say the policy is the reason they left and that the economic downtown didn't have an impact.

Research concluded that the lack of lawsuits is evidence that the policy did not result in a flood of racial profiling lawsuits. Only two lawsuits were filed and both have been dismissed.

"To date, not one claim of racial profiling has been recorded, and that's a fact," Stewart said.

 On the other hand, Lyall pointed out that the lack of recorded lawsuits due to racial profiling could simply be the result of people being too scared to come forward.

"If people feel they're victims of racial profiling, they won't come forward because of  fear of getting caught. They'll just quietly pay the ticket or do whatever they need to do to stay under the radar. To document racial profiling, people first have to come forward and say so."

According to Stewart, there has been a 46.7 percent drop in aggravated assaults and a 41 percent drop in hit and runs since the policy was announced.

 However, Lyall argued that crime was already on the decline before the policy, and Hispanics accounted for only 6 percent of overall crime.

"Legal people have left because they don't want to live in a county like this. Hispanics renting homes have left. This really hit the county hard," Lyall said.

The policy was intended to save the county money until officials found out they could now refuse federal aid services based on residency. The policy has cost taxpayers $2.8 million, with most of it for the police department, with the cost continuing to grow by at least $700,000 each year.

"I feel the cost was worth it because the money was used to create a new officer alien unit of six officers. It's created law enforcement jobs, beneficial to protecting the community…there have been drops in violent crimes, a drop in births, and ESOL {English as a Second Language}has leveled off within schools so the effects of the policy have been overwhelmingly positive," Stewart said.

 The Illegal Immigration Enforcement policy will be discussed in Richmond at the commencement of the 2011 legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly.

"Even if this policy gets mandated statewide, for Prince William, the community is used to it so there won't be much change here from here on out," Lyall said. "People are still coming back in; the policy didn't completely get rid of undocumented people."