Update July 26th: The special guests were Supervisor Wally Covington and Supervisor Marty Nohe. Also in attendance were Kris Nohe, Marty Nohe’s Senior Aide Tracy Gordon, and Supervisor John Stirrup aide Karen Ulrich.
Update July 25th: Getting word that we will have special guests from the county government attending tonight’s screening. I look forward to seeing everybody there!
Friday, July 25th at 7:30pm
Trinity Episcopal Church
9325 West Street
Manassas, VA 20110
I think MWB sounds like “rules don’t pertain to us”.
Mackie, I think the murder you reference needs to be investigated as a hate crime and if the local D.A. or police don’t view it as such, someone higher up the ladder (FBI?) should.
In my opinion, the Republican party needs to distance itself from FAIR, the anti-immigration groups, and HSM (locally). Voters are sick of this “hate” platform whether its being instructed to hate gays, Hispanics, Muslims, liberals, Commies, women who want to have abortions, people who are hopelessly ill and want to make the decision to die for themselves, Tinky Wink,welfare recipients, Disney, taxes which support our public infrastructure. Enough already!!! Find something positive that doesn’t make this country/county a worse place to live. Kick the loony right-wing nuts to the curb! The average person doesn’t want the vigilante, spy-in-the-bedroom, social dictators that have had a chokehold on your party. Do something about it. I’m an Independent and I’ve voted for a few of your candidates – locally.
Chris, your recollection of the discretionary funds is the same as mine.
Tenacious, the problem with the name is that it gives groups like HSM and scared people the ammo that they need to make more people fearful of Duecaster’s “invasion” and makes them want to become part of the repulsion. (Haha…I don’t think it dawned on Duecaster how ironic the word “repulsion” was when linked to HSM.)
Juturna, 27. July 2008, 14:42
Well said.
What Mackie fails to realize is that a neighborhood that has such issues as I’ve seen and others do effect all property values, and will drive the values down. Or maybe he’s one of the GREEDY ONES. The large number of foreclosures contribute enough, and the last thing we need is all the laws on the books thrown out the window.
Well, Mackie has answered my question does he even live in PWC? If he doesn’t I don’t see why PWC laws are so important to him. He should focus on his community, and hopefully he does. Maybe, he’s just got too much spare time on his hands, and visits us for something to fill his day.
corr: Well, Mackie has NOT answered my question does he even live in PWC?
WHWN,
Thanks for your detailed post. I wonder if the right wing media will give this murder as much attention as the drunk driving incident in Virginia Beach.
Your desire to have faith in those who wear uniforms or wear badges is admirable but misplaced. The police had an eye witness to the event. The eye witness even knew the names of all the perpetrators involved. This is more than enough for immediate arrest of the perpetrators. There is only one reason why the Police would have failed to immediately pursue and arrest the ones involved. They did not arrest them in order to give them time to destroy evidence and time to get their stories straight. It seems the perpetrators may possibly be from well connected families as well as even the Burrough Manager immediately came forth defending their families before the evidence was even gathered. This is criminal and intentional negligence on the part of the Police. They know the perpetrators are busy destroying as much evidence as they can with each minute that passes. Have you ever heard of that expression that the first 48 hours after a crime is the most crucial time period within which to catch the perpetrator. How long before these perps burn the clothes they were wearing that night? How long before they wash the damning dna evidence off their bodies and out from under their fingernails? How long before the kid who delivered the fatal kick buries those shoes in the local dump?
When the police handcuffed the hispanic guy who was trying to break up the fight and then they searched him and his car they were looking for anything to charge him with a crime. They were also trying to give the perpetrators time to get away. When the police said they had received a report of a gun in the area, they were quite simply lying. Those are the kinds of lies they use to scare you into giving up your 4th amendment rights and allowing them to search your person and vehicle. Whenever they say that ‘they received an anonymous tip’ you should assume they are lying.
If you think it can’t happen here, read this article. WHWN, if you are white you have the luxury of trusting the police. Or at least you think you do. But if these had been your children in the following article, you would never give the police the benefit of the doubt again. These are not isolated incidents:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n3_v28/ai_18116297
Another short video for your viewing pleasure, and enlightenment:
http://unfreestate.com/2008/07/27/illegal-runs-up-15m-hospital-bill-then-sues/
Off topic…Once long ago I listened to Anabel talk about how hard it was for some to deal with the changes in their neighborhood. That got me thinking about the “neighborhoods” in Manassas, and the changes they have gone thru. My father in-law’s childhood home and property at the corner of Hastings and Sudley was recently sold. The little white clapboard home was torn down to make room for development in the city of Manassas. My father in law was born in that home in 1938, and was raised in Manassas. One day I spoke with him about Manassas and what the town once meant to him. He talked about how Manassas was once “a nice town but has gone to crap”. I thought he was talking about the current development,immigration, the malls, developments etc. His response to me was “I’m talk’in about when the rich folks decided to build West Gate.” My husband remembers growing up and wishing his parents were rich enough to live in GTS. Instead they lived in the trailer park behind the Mc Donalds on Centreville Rd. When we moved into Sudley 6 years ago, his cousin declared “Now you’re in the big time! This is the rich neighborhood!” To him we made the big time. Perception is reality.
Great share, DB. And the times they are a’changing. When I first came to Manassas Grant Avenue and Pill Hill were the cat’s meow. It just didn’t get any better than that.
DB,
Great story of how long time residents look at Manassas. My aunt and uncle were original owners in GTS and they thought they’d hit the big time.
The Hyltons built the “tract housing” at both ends of the county. I never thought of myself as “rich kid” growing up in WestGate, but I certainly understood there were less desirable neighborhoods. However, I was aware there were people that lived in neighborhoods a lot better as well as a lot worse then mine.
Perception is reality, indeed.
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
SA,
I don’t know what to say about your video. What are the options? How would we be better off if the patients weren’t illegal aliens?
Is this plight the plight of health care in general? Medicaid? It certainly isn’t limited to illegal aliens bleeding the system (and I do not intend to imply it is intentional),
MH,
All you can say is that by halting illegal immigration there will be underlying benefits. The same holds true if you manage to prevent them entering your county, as Fairfax will soon discover.
MH,
You raise a very good point, if by accident. You’re right, it wouldn’t cost any less if the people weren’t illegal. However, and here is the catch, because they are illegal they can be deported or persuaded to return, and prevent the cost from occurring. If you give them citizenship (amnesty) they still won’t pay the bills only now they can stay and rack up even more bills in the future. So you’re right, in this case a few documents don’t make a difference. It’s the influx of low waged people that are the burden.
SA,
Your right, the other counties will now see what the problems of illegal immigration are. those broads out in hayseed land dont really have to deal with the day to day problem of illegals.
the problem with illegals eventually will bubble up to the point when even the most leftist individual is not going to tolerate their crap (look at the issues in san francisco now) now the spotlight is on illegal alien criminals. Sure, not all illegals are criminals in the felony sense but unfortuneatly they need to be lumped in with them and prevented from coming here and if necessary sent back.
SecondAlamo,
I think the work they do and its contribution to our economy far outweighs any social service cost.
Irregardless, we who vote control the social services available. Therefore, we cannot blame the immigrant for they do not vote and do not have any control over what social services are available. If you want to reduce the social services, that’s fine.
But you can reduce social services without deporting the immigrants. Focus on the social services and leave the immigrants alone.
elvis,
Real Americans believe in due process which has as it’s foundation judging people as individuals, and judging people as innocent until proven guilty.
Mackie,
Plenty of people in this country probably can’t afford to pay emergency services, and therefore don’t, but why inflamed the burden by welcoming those who obviously won’t be able to pay either? It makes no sense.
More awards:
Marty and Wally, the Bridge Makers
🙂
Wait, no.
“Bridge BUILDERS.”
I like that alliteration more.
SA,
I am not for blanket amnesty. I do think there should be a way to put one’s self in legal status. Paying a fine and having a squeaky clean record would be a place to start.
The health care system is so damaged and out of control I cannot think about it without getting a headache. It is horribly expensive to pay out of pocket. It is expensive to even pay an employee share if your company doesn’t provide a good plan.
People on medicare aren’t getting a bargain either. To have adequate coverage costs just under $300. That doesn’t include dental or eye care.
I have a very good friend who does billing for a physicians’ office. She moans and groans all the time about the breaks foreigners get. I don’t know the answer. I am throwing my hands up. I give up. I don’t even have a clever come back. I simply do not know. Pick something that doesn’t deal with health care. Health care just immobilizes me.
katherine,
I agree. Prince William County Bridge Builders Award:
Marty Nohe
Wally Covington
Frank Principi
Chief Charles T. Deane
There are probably others. I think both appointed and elected officials should be eligible.
Because we have the government too much involved creating artificially high prices for medical products. Wherever government sticks its corrupt head into things, you automatically get monopolies and artificially high prices coupled with reduction in quality.
Imagine if we passed a law saying everyone had a right to a cell phone. The only companies that would get contracts would be the ones who gave the best bribes to the legislators. Then because they had a lock on the market, they would charge the highest prices for the cheapest product. Without competition, they would never need to improve the quality or lower the price. And today we would all be walking around with cell phones that had no internet, no photographic/video capability, no text messaging, horrible reception, poor battery life, and was the size of a brick.
This is what cell phones were like at the very beginning. Look how far we’ve come because there is limited government control. In fact our cell phones could probably do a lot more nowadays if the government hadn’t maintained their regulations on radio frequencies and colluded with the big telecoms to help them establish monopolies over the radio frequencies.
Health Alert!!!! While we all sit back and debate immigration, know that there is a more insidious disease among us. My mother was bitten by a tick in VA less than 9 weeks ago. 7 days after her tick bite she went into toxic shock due to ehrlichiosis. She was intubated, suffered from kidney failure, pneumonia, low platlet count, required blood transfusions and was in ICU for many weeks, and rehab for weeks after. Keep yourselves safe, look to yourselves and your children.
elvis writes:
“Your [sic] right, the other counties will now see what the problems of illegal immigration are.”
I’ve found it fascinating how elvis and a few others keep implying that other counties have yet to experience a population of illegal immigrants. On the one hand, Arlington, for example, is often condemned as a sanctuary county. It even has a county-sponsored day labor site, although most illegal immigrant workers are not day laborers. On the other hand, Arlington is supposedly yet to experience the illegal population. Which is it, pray tell?
From what I can tell, Arlington has a substantial number of undocumented people, Latino and otherwise. What it lacks is the war zone created by constitutionally questionable statutes.
DB,
Thanks for the alert. How does one avoid this? I hope your mother is on the road to recovery. Does she live around here? Deer tick or the regular kind?
Leila, great points! You are quite adept at undressing and exposing specious arguments based on a virtual reality created by the Anti-Immigrant Lobby.
Second Alamo and Elvis are stuck in 2007 Anti-Immigrant talking point land. A major thrust of the argument for the Duecaster Disaster was based on the idea that undocumented immigrants are a net cost to a county’s economy and its tax base. Woops. Now we know better. Undocumented immigrants are a net benefit to both.
Or at least they were. Now Prince William County’s economy is at a huge disadvantage to surrounding counties who will now receive the net economic benefit of their presence. Businesses will be more likely to invest money in any economy OTHER than PWC’s because (A) they are likely to find the workers they need and (B) the population and economy of those other counties will be expanding while ours contracts.
What we’ve learned is that the only reason not to want “those people” in you community is if you simply don’t want “those people” in your community. All this silliness about quality of life … just a Corey Stewart/Anti-Immigrant Lobby slogan. You can improve neighborhoods by enforcing housing codes, helping to assimilate people, and effecting a change in behavior. There is no need to expel an entire population. Who’s to say the next group of low-income workers who take their place will behave in a desirable fashion? The Anti-Immigrant Lobby recommended we chop off our hand to treat a hang-nail. Foolishly, we obliged, and now we are bleeding. Simple as that.
To point at Fairfax and Arlington and say, “Aren’t you glad we aren’t like them!” is laughably stupid.
Again, there is only one reason to prefer a contracting economy to an expanding one: in the contracting economy we’ve created in PWC, less ethnic people.
Sad.
Mackie, I am white, I do trust the police, and I don’t know enough about detective work to argue with you about this. If it is bad police work, we can call it bad police work. But there seems to be a racial element to your condemnation of the police. I may be wrong. My only point was that no one should be excluded from this tragedy. It was a tragedy for a community, a town, a nation. Race is indeed part of the motive in a hate crime. But it need not be an obstacle to the healing process that must follow. Peace.
If citizenship is given to the illegals who now are living off of cash or under the table incomes (day laborers, etc.), what would be the effects of them now having to pay deductions and taxes while being monitored by the IRS? Would they still try to work outside the system, or become a tax burdened individual as we? My guess is they wouldn’t be able to handle the added expenses and they would either skirt the law once again, or the foreclosure rates will go even higher. Will you then be advocating tax breaks for them as well along with all the other benefits they will no longer be afraid to request?
News flash:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/27/AR2008072701973.html?hpid=topnews
Here are some interesting snippets from your article, SA. I wonder how some BVBL posters who are citizens will like this one:
Censored,
And you’re excited by this? Something tells me you’re on the wrong side of the border! Sounds like you’d be thrilled if ICE was abolished.
SA, is that “kill the messenger” talk?
It sounds like we will be sharing a lot more of the ICE resources with other jurisdictions in Virginia and we get to pay for for the priviledge. What’s wrong with this picture.
I have been supportive of the 287G program. Obviously. Who wants criminals in their community? Have I been duped? Do we want to short-change our county by paying out over $1.5 million dollars, $10.5 million over five years when there is a program in place state wide now? I am mentally back to square one.
I believe the most important line in the article is:
We are paying a great deal of money into something we have absolutely no control over and at the moment, cannot even find out what has become of those who fell into the 287G detainer net.
SA, most illegal immigrants are not day laborers. Most have regular work. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be contributing around $7 billion (with a b) *annually* to the Social Security system. Citizenship is clearly not the only method of bringing illegal immigrants under legal oversight, you ignore greatly expanded guest-worker programs. But assume what you warn of happened and they were all made citizens and that tiny minority who are day laborers were still day laborers. Well I guess they would citizens in a cash economy similar to American-born citizens who live that way. You doubt it? Check out S. Venkatesh’s study “Off the Books” about the underground economy in an inner-city neighborhood of Chicago. Citizens dealing in underground cash economies are nothing new, even if those economies are marginal. They are widespread in both urban and rural settings.
SA, what is your take on this story? Were we duped?
Whose brain child was it to get the 287g program? Why should we be paying $10.5 million over 5 years and most of the state doesn’t have to? Will we be getting more bang for our buck? It sure doesn’t sound like it.
I am going to be really PO’ed if I have to eat crow on this one. I believed! I thought I was supporting a good thing. Now I am not so sure.
I want criminals off the street. I want illegal alien criminals off the street and I want them not to be in this country after they serve their sentence. When I say criminal, I mean those who commit crimes against property and person. I don’t mean jaywalkers. I can’t think of a person who wouldn’t want the same.
I’ve always wanted to know who if anybody is following how many cases actually go before a Federal Court for deportation And then how many of those cases that do go to court then get deported. Anyone know?
I feel the real numbers of deportation are there at the Federal Courts and Jails, and not at the local jail.
Chris, it doesn’t sound like the ADC knows jack. They aren’t being told. Do you think the feds even have a handle on this information? What is this manual tabulation? Why is it that this information needs to be tabulated manually?
Wars have been fought with the general sitting in Florida. There was a moon landing 40 years ago with the scientists sitting in Houston and in Florida. Haven’t these people heard of computers? Manual tabulation? Wake me up and tell me what century we are living in.
M-H, the 287(G) program enables those local officers (both in the ADC and in the Police Department) who are certified to begin the process of deportation by doing the background and paperwork on the subject. That process and the completed paperwork is reviewed and approved by the ICE agent in charge of their particular program. This is the actual process of deportation.
The new State law does nothing of the sort. What it does is demand that each local jail notify ICE of foreign born inmates – even individuals with legal status as long as they are foreign born. It does not begin any deportation process and it does not select particular inmates for deportation. It merely notifies ICE that a foreign born individual is in their ADC or jail.
So if you’re looking for what does the 287(G) program give you for your money, it can begin the deportation process for illegal aliens in your local jail, instead of just notifying ICE that they are sitting in the jail.
DB, OMG! Hope your mom is okay!
I’m a tick magnet. Yikes!
Lucky Duck,
Thank you so much. I wish YOU had written the article for the Washington Post. I feel much better now. I felt like we were paying the big bucks and everyone else was just skating.
So, in your opinion, did Albo throw PWC under the bus? His quote
was just political-speak for ‘see what I have done?’
M-H, while a person without documents can be deported from any jail that contacts ICE and informs them that the subject is there and ICE begins the process, the deportation process will be much quicker and individually targeted here in Prince William (“the worst of the worst” as the saying goes) because those that can initiate and perform the deportation process are here under 287(G).
I’ll leave the political pandering to those who like their names in the papers.
Okay, but doesn’t all this reporting just put ICE more behind? Do they have to sort through those who are merely foreign born and those who could be undocumented?
Lucky Duck,
Thanks for the clarification. I still can’t understand why with all the debate here in PWC that there aren’t any “real numbers”. Isn’t what’s going on in PWC worthy of such details? I just wonder how many of the number Corey says have been deported, actually have been deported? Are they all still serving jail time? How do we know further down the road that these individuals weren’t released because ICE didn’t have room to detain them after they’d served their sentence for the crime that was committed in PWC? Can you help me out here?
WHWN,
I have to admit my knowledge concerning police procedure is limited at best. I am speculating as to what really happened in PA. In reflection, I probably have been too judgmental about the situation.
In all fairness to the police, when they show up at a crime scene, they do not know who the perps are and who are the victims. That being the case, it’s understandable that they would cuff people who were involved in the fight and search them as long as they don’t violate their 4th amendment rights. What I cannot understand at all is why the police did not immediately proceed to find and arrest the people identified as the perpetrators. This is especially troubling because the police had an eyewitness who actually knew the names of the perpetrators.
For the life of me I cannot think of a single legitimate reason that they would not have immediately gone to the homes of the perpetrators and arrest them. Physical evidence is absolutely crucial in a case such as this. DNA evidence would be priceless and that DNA evidence begins to deteriorate the second the crime is over.
Maybe the police officers were just careless. Perhaps they know the eye witness and know her to be a liar. Many things are possible but at this point nothing explains why the police didn’t arrest the perpetrators.
I believe in law and order. But I oppose with the abuse of law and order. The police do perform a valuable service in the community. For the most part, I have have found that as long as you are polite and respectful to the police, they will treat you ok. However, situations like this in PA, where it appears that they continue to allow the perpetrators to roam free even to this day, these situations make one worry about what the priorities of the police actually are.
“But I oppose with the abuse of law and order.”
I suspect that describes most of us, Mackie.
Wonderful. Prince William County is shelling out $10 million dollars so that 5% of people reported to ICE are deported. Meanwhile every other locality in Virginia will basically get the same drop in the bucket for free. Thanks Corey Stewart!
But how did I know someone like Second Alamo would be unable to see the complexities in this article? How did I guess that he would think this is another reason to celebrate? Either this guy doesn’t live in PWC, or he just doesn’t understand this policy or much of any policy to do with law enforcement.
Second Alamo, get this straight: there are two VERY BIG reasons why you and every other Prince William County tax payer should be upset about this news.
1) Remember that 12,073 to 694 ratio? Well, that 5 percent is going to go DOWN now, because ICE will be getting reports from all over the state. So if it goes down to 3 percent, we’ll get even less for our money. And other localities will be getting the same 3 percent effectiveness … FOR FREE!
2) The article explains quite plainly how little we were getting from the program before the state law came along. The 95 percent who get let go is the same 95 percent that PWC tax payers are shelling out MORE THAN TEN MILLION DOLLARS to check. That’s right. Let me say it again. We are paying more than ten million dollars in Prince William County to do immigration checks on people who DO NOT receive ICE detainers. They’re let go. We establish they are undocumented and they let them go. That’s what we are paying for. Now, we’ll be getting even less for our money.
Does everyone understand why ICE can only take 5 percent? It has to do with jail space. Their jail space and our jail space. As well as manpower and resources. Sure, we could build giant concentration camps, but that would be expensive and immoral, AND before they are operational, the immigration “crisis” will be solved a the Federal level and we’d have empty concentration camps.
If ICE is ineffective, this is all the more reason to push reform at the Federal level and stop wasting our time locally–because that’s all we are doing at this point. The 287g program is good in concept but is sounding less than effective in practice.
To further explain:
ICE can only handle 5 percent of the people identified to them as undocumented. The other 95 percent are let go.
Unless the person committed a violent crime, they’re let go.
There is limited jail space. Either we lock up the people who commit violent crimes or we lock up the people who failed to stop at a stop sign. Which would you rather have locked up? Which would you rather have back on the street?
If you’re upset that year Spanish when you go to the store, or upset that your neighbors are brown, then I’m sorry, this law is not going to make you any happier. In fact, 287G was never going to help you.
If you want law enforcement to continue to keep our communities safe, then this news is really not news.
They already prioritize based on risk to the community. There will be more people reported to ICE as undocumented because all the jails will be doing what PWC is doing … post arrest status checks (only they narrow this down to foreign born individuals and we check everyone post-arrest).
What does this mean? It means that undocumented immigrants will be incarcerated at the same rate, essentially, that other sub-groups are incarcerated. It all depends on the seriousness of the crime. Would you want it any other way?
The ones that committed a violent or drug-related crime get detainers. That’s fine with me and fine by most. What’s not fine by me is that we have paid out 10 MILLION DOLLARS, plus all the over-time pay for county staff and our police department having to deal with Duecaster Dissater fall-out, PLUS all the time this took away from their ACTUAL JOBS serving this community. We’ve paid all of this for the same stupid 5 percent (which will soon drop down to 2 percent) that all the other localities get for free.
Thanks Corey Stewart!
I think I can explain why Gerhart says we are getting something for our money above and beyond what other localities get.
The new state law requires jail officials to notify the Feds of all foreign born inmates (including naturalized citizens like Arnold Schrawrtzenagger and legal immigrants like Corey Stewart’s wife). This means that ICE will be contemplating deporting these people after they serve their time. Fine with me. (Would anyone object to deportation being part of the penalty for committing a crime serious enough to land you in jail? I hope not, because that would be off topic.)
ICE can only handle what they can handle, however, so they will continue to put detainers on 5 percent of those who are reported to them. In fact, that 5 percent rate will almost certainly drop because there will be more names in the cue.
What Gerhart is saying is that Prince William County will be putting MORE names into the 5-percent-or-less cue than most other juristictions.
We will be putting more names in because we are checking status at the arrest stage, as opposed to at incarceration. About half the people we arrest are released on bond (this also has to do with jail space and is decided based on risk to the community).
So, in addition to the dangerous criminals who end up in jail, we are also reporting the not-so-dangerous people who are released because they are not judged to be as much of a risk to the community.
We’ll be reporting these people to ICE, but … think about it. If they weren’t considered dangerous to even put in jail, how do you think they’ll stack up with the inmates who are incarcerated being reported to ICE from other jurisdictions? Not very well.
ICE will focus on the ones who are in jail because they are (1) easier to find and (2) a greater risk to the community by the fact that they are in jail as opposed to released on bond.
Bottom line: the tremendous costs of the Immigration Resolution, our ruined reputation and our severely damaged economy, the cuts we have been forced to make to social programs that improved our quality of life, and 10 MILLION DOLLARS of tax payer money … all of that was traded for essentially nothing. We are less safe as a result of destroying our reputation and our economy than we were before. Thanks Corey Stewart!
My prediction:
What’s going to happen is that Supervisors including maybe even John Stirrup will blame Corey Stewart for the damages. Who knows maybe they will even pass a vote of no confidence. Corey will turn around and blame Greg Letiecq for organizing a clever insurgency manipulating public opinion by creating an illusion of consensus and also systematically toxifying the community through disinformation, intimidation and bullying. And then Greg will turn around and uh who cares what Greg will do. He’s a nobody now.
What an amazing thread this was. I’m floored by the substantive exchange of ideas. I learned so much by reading every comment. I’m honored to be the 200th comment. Speaking of awards, can we given an award to this thread? The best thread ever.