According to the Washington Post,
Prince William, a Year Later
A crackdown’s toxic effectsONE YEAR after Prince William County launched its drive to hound, harass and humiliate illegal immigrants, the toxic effects of the policy — on the county’s reputation, social cohesion, political discourse and neighbors — are increasingly clear.
Across the nation, Prince William has become synonymous with an ugly strain of nativist intolerance that has deep roots in American history but which is a slander on the county’s generally well-educated and diverse population. In this region, almost every other major jurisdiction has spurned Prince William’s approach.
Minorities account for almost half of Prince William’s 370,000 people, and a large slice of that population — around 20 percent — is Hispanic. Most of them are legal residents, but many also have ties of kinship, friendship or employment with others who are undocumented. Many say they have been made to feel unwelcome in Prince William. This year, several dozen religious leaders in the county wrote to local elected officials, warning them of the divisive consequences of the county’s venomous campaign.
Predictably, they got the brushoff from Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, who has done more than anyone else to plant seeds of discord and hatred in the county. Mr. Stewart is an avid opportunist and manipulator who has an arm’s-length relationship with public candor. Not long ago, he said that a plan to install cameras in police cars — a precondition for his preferred policy of allowing officers to ask suspects about their immigration status almost at will before arrest — would be dropped “over my dead body”; then he dropped it. Lately, he has tried to link a decline in crime to the harsh policies he has advocated. Trouble is, much of the drop is attributable to a fall in robberies that predates the crackdown on illegal immigrants and that probably stemmed from an aggressive anti-robbery campaign by the police.
So what has the county achieved with its effort to intimidate undocumented newcomers by ordering checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest and by denying certain social services to illegal immigrants? Without doubt, it has prompted hundreds of Hispanics — legal and illegal — to depart the county. Many of them have moved to surrounding jurisdictions, where they are enrolling in public schools and turning to local government services or nonprofits for help. To Mr. Stewart and his allies, this beggar-thy-neighbor policy is a success. In fact, it has simply branded Prince William as the one locality in the Washington area where demagoguery by elected officials has gotten the better of coolheaded public deliberation.
Like I said before, 287(g) and mandatory checks on those arrested and still all this BS. What gives? Is there another agenda?
Mando,
Do you realize that the Resolution is not the 287(g) program? I’d just like to make sure we are clear on this fact. I am sensing some confusion still from some that suggest that the resolution is the 287(g) program.
The real question is what can we do with those “documented newcomers”? (This does not apply to all). The guilty parties know who they are.They seem to be the ones wanting to push THEIR agendas. They must have liked something they saw or why else did they move here.
Good question Mando – is the editorial complaining that the 287(g) and mandatory checks on those arrested should be discontinued?
“Without doubt, it has prompted hundreds of Hispanics — legal and illegal — to depart the county. Many of them have moved to surrounding jurisdictions, where they are enrolling in public schools and turning to local government services or nonprofits for help.”
I imagine that is the source of most of the teeth gnashing. They shoulda saw it coming is all I have to say. Welcome matts are welcome matts.
“Good question Mando – is the editorial complaining that the 287(g) and mandatory checks on those arrested should be discontinued?”
Sounds like it to me. Re-read the last paragraph.
Mando – agreed, that’s how the last paragraph reads to me as well. Actually, the comments section on the editorial is most interesting – there’s not too many comments agreeing with the Post’s editorial.
It is interesting it sounds like they are complaining about the movement of illegal residents to other counties from PWC. They can’t have it both ways – which it sounds like they are trying to do with the sentence “Many of them have moved to surrounding jurisdictions, where they are enrolling in public schools and turning to local government services or nonprofits for help.” Seems to me they would have just pointed out that they are moving to other jurisdicitions, but the rest of the sentence leads me to believe they are unhappy about the use of local government services by these people. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
It’s more tripe to add to the garbage can. Does nothing more then piss people off and promote more histeria. I guess some on this site get some mouth-watering satisfaction out of it.
“Seems to me they would have just pointed out that they are moving to other jurisdicitions, but the rest of the sentence leads me to believe they are unhappy about the use of local government services by these people. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”
Bingo. It’s getting hard for them to hide their hypocracy.
That’s the problem lately some in the county just want to “win” all the time. It’s really quite a childish approach.
Mando,
Please see my response in the MJM thread.
Honestly, I’m glad for this editorial. I want to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to get the illegals to think this is an unfriendly area. The collaterall damage of a bunch of leftist snots who take Washington Post editorials seriously thinking we’re bigots does not bother me. I welcome and embrace the reputation of a place where the law occasionally gets enforced to the point that illegals don’t feel comfortable here.
I know that is troublesome to some of you but it’s my best-case scenario.
Furthermore just watch and see how this plays out locally – how the other counties react when masses of illegals settle next to them – and nationally – when one of these two tools running for President tries to implement Amnesty yet again.
An Observer,
Same to you, do you not realize the 287(g) program is not the resolution? You and Mando have been long participants in this discussion, is this simple fact unclear? The resolution is not nor has it ever been the 287(g) program. The resolution, has always been what goes beyond the 287(g) program, including the restriction of the services and everything that goes beyond checking immigration status at the jails. It’s concerning that there is still this misunderstanding of what the resolution actually is and isn’t.
Let’s see if we can find a link to the PWC website that spells this out.
Here’s the link to what the county has to say about the Resolution. It has the history of actions taken by the board.
http://www.pwcgov.org/default.aspx?topic=040050002380002294
Alanna,
Agreed with the misunderstanding of the resolution. I hope all look at what the county has to say on their website. There’s been plenty of spin put on the issue.
Alanna – I never mentioned “the resolution” in any of my posts on this thread. And it was the Washington Post editorial itself that has the sentence “So what has the county achieved with its effort to intimidate undocumented newcomers by ordering checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest and by denying certain social services to illegal immigrants?”. OK, I will agree they are complaining about denying certain social services, which IS part of the resolution, but they are also complaining about “ordering checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest”.
So they are the ones muddying the waters as to what is and isn’t the resolution. Nothing in my posts on this thread did that. And, does anyone think that “checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest” is not a good idea? Apparently the Washington Post thinks it isn’t.
Rick Bentley wrote:
Just to clarify…Rick Bentley called me a leftist snot. 🙂
The rest of the above post is my own words.
No, the Washington Post has not muddied the waters. The waters were muddied by HSM and by our county government. The Immigration Resolution, which is NOT the 287G program, is a shell of what the former original document stated. For the record, we already had the 287G program before the Immigration Resolution was proposed on July 10, 2007.
We have spent a bunch of money during an economic downturn, to implement something that really is nothing now, but was used to spread fear in the county and to cause a great about of disharmony. I think it was to get Republicans elected.
Rick, do you really want to live in an area where a certain group of people are run off through fear tactics nor misperceptions? What happens when someone decides that you and your family are undesirables? If I recall correctly, your family is diverse? If you had lived where I lived growing up, you would not have been welcome in the neighborhood. Just something to think about. If we do it to one, we do it to all. I would prefer to do it to no one.
Now I have to ask…just what is a leftist snot? Is that worse that a rightist snot?
Things should have been done differently. Do you realize the County is going to hold hearings on the removal of trash from abandoned properties? Where was the hearing on this matter? Citizens were delegated to 1 minute and 3 minutes during Citizens’ Time to discuss this issue. It was an ambush with no opportunity for discussion. In my opinion, this has been an exercise in how not to run County business.
It was deplorable. And yes, we were all blind-sided. No public hearings. Policy was deliberately presented in a confusing way and the lines between 287g and the Immigration Resolution were deliberately blurred.
Certain elected officials had handlers who told them what to say and how to vote.
Shall we call it Resolution-gate? Corey-gate?
The most disturbing part about it has been the bullying. Speakers have been bullied, other supervisors have been bullied, ordinary citizens have been bullied, and ultimately, an entire class of citizens has been bullied. I am sure I have left out many other examples. I am just disgusted.
So apparently then, it is OK that the Washington Post isn’t in favor of the 287G program. After all, that’s what they are saying by the following sentence: “So what has the county achieved with its effort to intimidate undocumented newcomers by ordering checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest and by denying certain social services to illegal immigrants? ”
Apparently by this logic the county should never have adopted the 287G program, since it is intimidating all the “undocumented newcomers”.
I guess no one else has a problem with the fact that the Washington Post doesn’t support 287G.
Observer,
What is your point? Why should I have a problem with their opinion of 287g any more than I have with the fact that they think we are all horses’ asses because we live in Prince William County and elected a buffoon as a chairman of the BOCS?
They probably don’t understand the difference. Most of the county doesn’t understand it because it was obviously presented as a package deal, which it is not. I bet you don’t know the difference either.
Moon-howler: My point is apparently the Washington Post doesn’t even like the 287g program. To me that IS an important point.
And I don’t know why you and Alanna keep saying I don’t understand the difference between the resolution and 287g. For some reason you keep insisting that, and I’m not sure quite why, since it was the Post’s editorial that clearly confuses the two – not me.
It is also clear the Washington Post didn’t even research things properly, since they fail to understand that 287g is not part of the resolution.
Hopefully the writer of the editorial will come down here to the film viewing so they can get matters straightened out.
I think the overall point they are making is stated in the first two paragraphs.
After that is stated, what else do we need?
After all, it is an opinion piece, not a news article. Perhaps I should be asking you, Observer, if this opinion doesn’t make you wince just a little?
I am not sure I understand why anyone thinks the WaPo opinion piece dislikes the 287g program. Whether they do or they don’t, the opinion was about the process of ridding a county of what some consider undesirables. That is the part the paper takes issue with:
A leftist snot is when Ricardo Bentley gets so afraid of being challenged that his neck muscles involuntarily contract twisting his head to the left and his mucus membranes begin to convulse rapidly leading to violent and uncontrollable nasal explosions all over himself, his monitor, and his keyboard.
“Rick, do you really want to live in an area where a certain group of people are run off through fear tactics nor misperceptions? ” Yes it beats living in a neighborhood full of illegal boardinghouses and in a community with two sets of rules and languages and standards for accountability.
“What happens when someone decides that you and your family are undesirables? If I recall correctly, your family is diverse?” I understand your point. But I don’t let it freeze me into inaction when the elites start using illegal immigrants as pawns to further the gap between rich and poor.
While I will agree that the opinion piece was “about the process of ridding a county of what some consider undesirables” the last paragraph makes it clear the person who wrote the editorial thinks the 287g program is part of that process. I find it hard to believe anyone can disagree with the need to check the immigration status of all those who end up in jail. That is the point I’m making. In any event, fine, the writer may be wrong in his/her impression that 287g is part of the resolution. I wonder then if the writer understood that 287g is not part of the resolution, how that would have changed the last paragraph of the piece.
@ Alanna
“Mando,
Do you realize that the Resolution is not the 287(g) program?”
Yes.
Do you agree with this author’s view on 287(g) and mandatory checks for those arrested?
It doesn’t say conclusively that they disapprove of the end result. I think the denunciation is aimed at the process and the general feeling one now has about PWC after a year of anti illegal immigration rhetoric.
I do not think you do the piece justice if you pick it apart sentence by sentence. I also don’t think one has to agree with every word.
To answer your question: I know of no one against the 287g program. However, there are many people I do not know.
This piece deserves no justice. It’s crap.
“It doesn’t say conclusively that they disapprove of the end result.”
The implication is obvious to me.
I agree Mando, to me it does sound like they disapprove of teh 287g program.
Maybe they disagree with 287(g) outside the jails. Not the entire program. Very expensive way to run things. Jailers cost less salary wise and taking “officers off the street is counterproductive”…… just a wee thought.
It also in the last paragraph blames the 287g program and the cutting of some social services for Hispanics leaving the county, and then further in that same paragraph says those Hispanics are now moving to other counties and turning to local government services in those counties for help, as well as enrolling in the schools in those counties. To me, I’m not sure they would have mentioned all of that when just to say they are moving to other counties would have sufficed. Other than to imply they are causing a drain on local govenments in those counties. Altogether, that last paragraph seems to have a lot of flaws in it that isn’t helping the argument the piece is trying to make.
Juturna said “Maybe they disagree with 287(g) outside the jails”.
Actually, the article never specifically called it out as 287(g) – that term was just used in this thread. The exact sentence in the article’s last paragraph is “So what has the county achieved with its effort to intimidate undocumented newcomers by ordering checks on the immigration status of all detainees after arrest and by denying certain social services to illegal immigrants? ”
Sounds to me the author disagrees with the INSIDE the jail part.
Haven’t run into too many people liberal or conservative (or what ever is the polarizing terminology of the day) that disagree with running this program post arrest in the jails. Most seem to object to the “hunting them down” approach that has been intertwined with the phraseaology “287(g)”.
“Most seem to object to the “hunting them down” approach that has been intertwined with the phraseaology “287(g)”
Whom is hunting anyone down?
“Haven’t run into too many people liberal or conservative (or what ever is the polarizing terminology of the day) that disagree with running this program post arrest in the jails.”
See Rod2155 apparently.
There are checks into immigration status that take place apart from the 287(g) program (which is in place at the Adult Detention Center). Those additional checks (which were once to be applied to all who had any dealing with the police then changed to “probable cause” then changed to the current status) are part of the now infamous resolution (and are that whole section that either strengthened or weakened the resolution depending on who you talk to).
I think you will find few who believe that the 287(g) program is misguided. If you rob, steal, rape, murder, etc., and you are here illegally, by all means let’s boot you out. The breakdown comes in the extremes the resolution goes to and to the cover it gives to those whose motives are less pure than a simple issue of legal versus illegal.
For example, the resolution does absolutely nothing about the prevalence (good or bad) of languages other than English being spoken and used in the public commons. Yet people like Mr Bentley continue to lump culture and language into the discussion of the resolution:
It’s when the resolution is spun in these terms that the more nefarious aspects of its purpose are exposed to light. This is about more than legal versus illegal. This is about preserving what some see as a specific culture and way of life from those they see as threatening to it regardless of the legal status of that threat. Many who support the resolution (including some of those who drafted it) seem to be using the legal versus illegal argument as convenient cover for their own biases and fears. It is this covert messages (which are sometime not so covert) that have helped to paint Prince William as a community of intolerance and bigotry.
And here’s something interesting on in yesterday’s Washington Post:
The Nation
Monday, July 21, 2008; A02
ATTENTION RIGHT AND LEFT
The mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who drew nationwide attention as well as local support, at right, for his 2006 crackdown on illegal immigration, has been named the state’s Mayor of the Year. In honoring Lou Barletta, the Pennsylvania State Mayors Association cited the crackdown and his method of combating crime.
SOURCE: Associated Press
IN FACT Barletta (R), a three-term mayor, is now running for Congress
There are several people here missing the totality of what it means when the Washington Post and the Washingtonian Magazine “out” you as intolerant. Your reputation goes in the toilet even more. Clearly, the perception, thanks to Greg and Corey and others, have promoted the perception that we are unwelcoming to a certain community. Corey’s ties to Greg are unacceptable and only further the notion that our Chairman takes advice from a Nativist and allows our public policy to be dictated by the like of Robert Duecaster. Does anyone believe that this publicity will attract “high end retail” and quality commercial ventures? I am pretty sure that it have the opposite effect!
“It’s when the resolution is spun in these terms that the more nefarious aspects of its purpose are exposed to light. This is about more than legal versus illegal.”
Assuming there are nefarious aspects. Everyone has an agenda. Some sinister some not. The paintbrush is arbitrary. Rhetoric from either side means little to those of us who feel the effects of illegal immigration on a personal and daily basis. The “us” are those that live in these communities and the ones that vote. I find it hard to believe that the majority of us have sinister intentions.
The resolution is a result of pent up frustration and nothing more then a paper tiger as far as I can tell. Editorials and sites like this give that paper tiger it’s fangs.
“Does anyone believe that this publicity will attract “high end retail” and quality commercial ventures? I am pretty sure that it have the opposite effect!”
“High end retail” and quality commercial ventures follow the money. Pure and simple.
Pretty scathing editorial, it touched on all the important issues too.
2 publications both giving the county negative exposure whether you agree or disagree is cause for concern. PWC is also listed in many places as being in the top 10 real estate foreclosure sites.
Mando and observer can sit there and do the amen chorus thing at each other all they want, it doesn’t change the negative publicity end of things. I see several errors in the WaPo editorial. The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter squat what I see. How does the rest of the region view it. That should be our concern.
Too bad about the ac malfunction at McCoart. I would have liked to have seen the look on a few faces when those bad-boys were read.
andy,
I don’t think Pennsylvania is particularly well known as a bastion of racial tolerance. Lou Barletta is a disgrace to Italians just like that schmuck Joey Vento and his worthless cheesesteaks. Please don’t go to Joey Vento’s place. Go to Tony Lukes and order a cheesesteak with fried onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and (the most essential ingredient) sharp provolone. Bathe it in mustard and bring it back for me would ya?
“How does the rest of the region view it. That should be our concern.”
Why?