Sharing an e-mail from Eric Byler —
Dear Friends,
Annabel Park and I have a documentary coming out this fall. 9500 Liberty explores the social, political, and economic fallout from one of America’s fiercest battles over immigration policy at the local level. We feel that our film will help illuminate what is really at stake in the upcoming national debate over immigration policy.
Watch our trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZkL_0lZ1Q
Please share our new website: http://9500liberty.com/
Please join our Facebook group at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=13491935091&ref=ts
And/or please follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/9500Liberty
Thanks,
Eric Byler & Annabel Park
“Probable cause” was a stack of hay waiting for a match. Racial profiling suits would have killed this county entirely, and we know the lawsuits would have come fast and furious.
The 287g program in place now is fine. But isn’t there some program coming out that would make something like 287g nation-wide? This means we have already paid for something that, if we had waited just a little longer, we could have had from the Feds. (Someone help me out here with the info on that new program.)
I wish the county would get rid of the rest of the resolution verbiage on withholding services to the elderly and disabled. It’s just mean and undermines how we treat all the elderly, including lifelong PWC residents who have since been forced to prove citizenship. Ridiculous!
It’s true Pinko. Chief Deane had already recommended 287g in the jails and we joined the program based on a 2006 vote SIX MONTHS BEFORE John Stirrup and Corey Stewart’s election year political posturing began just in time for the 2007 election. Honestly, I didn’t even hear about it. But I understand that the Board voted for 287g in 2006 with Chief Deane’s assurances that racial profiling would not result.
You forgot to mention, as well, that the Commonwealth of Virginia now has something similar where they check status after arrest if you are foreign born.
So, we were on the right track by voting in 287g, and it looks like the rest of the state and the country are following, also with proper safeguards in place.
Then they took it further.
Now, it might have been good politics for Letiecq, Stewart, and Stirrup to take it further, but it was bad policy. Mandatory status checks out on the streets disrupted the primary purpose of our police force, which is to keep our county safe. By telling our Officers you have to question anyone who you have “probable cause” to think is undocumented, our government was meddling in police business, complicating their job, taking time away from keeping us safe, and costing lots of taxpayer dollars for the retraining of hundreds and hundreds of officers.
So we paid the $14,000,000 and got nothing in return other than a divided community and a negative reputation. Worse, we ended up with the worst foreclosure rate on this side of the country and economic impacts that compounded the global economic crisis that hit everyone but hit us harder.
I’m with you, it would have been best if the BOCS admitted their error and rescinded the Resolution entirely. But that was not practical given the amount of passion, fear, and hatred that was brewing in our county. The BOCS was afraid, and rightly so, that certain extremists would take the law into their own hands. No one wanted to see that.
So taking the teeth out of the policy was the best solution. Although I would have preferred a policy change that had style as well as substance, the SUBSTANCE was the important thing. I came to realize this compromise was best thanks to the leadership of people on this blog and members of the BOCS who I talked to privately.
As I see it, the 9500Liberty documentary bears witness to the clear fact that anti-Hispanic sentiment was at the core of what motivated “anti-illegal immigration” policy in Prince William County (a fact of which Chief Deane himself implicitly acknowledged).
The documentary furthermore acutely demonstrates the moral impotence of the arguments presented by advocates of such policy who irrationally deify “rule of law” and offer embarrassing justifications for its strict enforcement by claiming that American immigration law is part of “God’s plan”.
Ultimately the impact (and veracity) of the 9500Liberty documentary will best be measured by comparing the events of the past two years with the resulting realities of the present.
ShellyB…While I agree with the change in the resolution that you speak of…it is not exactly “neutered” and I have read that term often on this blog…the probable cause element was changed from “mandated” and left to the Officer’s discretion. I have read both viewpoints on both blogs and several others and all claim victory. Yes, officers are no longer mandated, but are permitted to inquire of immigration status if reasonable suspicion (a lesser legal threshold than probable cause)exists that the subject is an illegal alien. Federal laws allows this and cannot be overridden by any State’s law.
Did you know that if an illegal alien is stopped for a traffic infraction and cannot produce a valid OL – which they cannot obtain in Virginia – they are arrested and brought before a magistrate and the fact that they cannot produce residency is acknowledged – which means a bond which leads to the ADC which leads to 287(G) and the immigration process? And this will take place anytime someone is stopped for a summons or physically arrested for any other crime and is reasonably suspected of being an illegal alien…so both sides claim victory. But the fact is that illegals or undocumented – pick your term – are still introduced to the immigration process. This goes for any summons or physical arrest. Yes, the process is broken and takes years. But those individuals now have a court date with immigration that they did not have before there interaction with the PWCPD.
So, while both sides still to this day claim victory, not too much has changed from the individual police officer’s perspective. Pick your winner.
Lucky Duck, Is there now a state 287(g) program? I believe you addressed this issue about a year ago. Has something else changed?
Yes, there is a State 287(G) and nothing has changed. We have had 287(G) here for a while. So as there has been debate claiming “victory” over the resolution issue from both sides for a while, the fact in Prince William remains that if you are illegal and come into contact with the police via a traffic infraction, criminal arrest (a&b, domestic, warrant service etc.) you are going to the magistrate and then the ADC and immigration. This does not happen in any other County in Virginia, just Prince William.
And you are saying this is a result of the immigration resolution or because of how our 287(g) works?
Domestic = beating your wife?
You will not be stopped because you ‘look’ illegal though or if you have a tail light out and asked about immigration status?
I’m glad Lucky Duck made this point. That was sort of my understanding too. To claim the resolution is completely neutered doesn’t seem to be quite accurate. As I’ve stated before (even a year ago when I came on the blog right after this happened), I’m happy with the resolution in its current form. And, it’s good that both sides were able to find they could claim “victory” and they were happy with the resulting form of the resolution. At least, it appeared to me that most moderates on both sides were happy with the resulting form of the resolution.
Recall that besides the “probable cause” mandate in the original resolution, there was verbiage that made county employees believe they had to check citizen status before they say, loaned a library book. All that language was removed as well.
MH..I am saying these icidents will take place because of our resolution.if you have a taillight out and are stopped cannot produce a license the officer can question your immigration status. If the answers lead up to you being an illegal immigrant, according to policy, you are not going to be released on a summons – you’re going to the Magistrate’s, Jail and into the immigration system. If this traffic stop took place in Fairfax, you’re immigration status wouldn’t come up.
Posting as Pinko, you are correct that language was in the original “proposed” resolution, one that was never passed.
I am happy with the change because it means we have gone back to what we had before. As Lucky Duck thoroughly explains, Federal law grants police officers the authority to ask about legal status at their discretion … Officers already had that authority before the Immigration Resolution was ever introduced. For a short time, Officers were mandated to check the status of anyone who seemed like they might be illegal. This meant that our Board of Supervisors had taken away the Officer’s discretion and put we the taxpayers in jeopardy of paying for the racial profiling law suits that would certainly have resulted.
After the “neutering” or whatever we call it, Corey Stewart deliberately misled the public when explaining why he voted with the rest of the Board to revert back to the previous, Federal law that allows Officers discretion. He said, now we have “reasonable suspicion” which is much tougher and scarier. But the fact was this was already true under Federal law before we ever had an Immigration Resolution. So why brag about it? Some have suggested that he did so to avoid vigilante violence. I don’t buy that. It was CYA politically all the way.
The most important thing is that taxpayers are in less jeopardy of having to foot the bill for racial profiling law suits, which could have cost us tens of millions of dollars. The most direct fiscal impact of our county government’s ill-advised foray into federal immigration law has most likely been avoided. However, our Police Officers who now have their own discretion returned to them, remain in jeopardy to some degree … and whatever degree that is, it is much greater because of the Immigration Resolution in it’s short-lived, probably unconstitutional form.
What makes Help Save Manasass happy is that undocumented immigrants see Prince William County as an unwelcoming and unsafe place. This is true of documented immigrants, and minorities in general as well unfortunately … as our citizen survey indicated right before it got slashed from the budget … thus the added fear that accompanies such a person across our county line comes with a price.
The behavior and the rhetoric used by Greg Letiecq, Corey Stewart, John Stirrup, and many highly agitated citizens has created a reputation for this county that no law could undo, and, frankly, no law could have created. Indeed, much of the fear and anxiety that immigrants and minorities experience in this county is due to an unfounded mistrust of our Police Officers. Instead of seeing them as partners in a community based approach to keeping our county safe, many residents mistakenly think of our Police Officers as being overly focused on race and ethnicity. As many who are experienced in law enforcement will tell you, this sort of social environment makes us all less safe, because crimes go unreported and people are less likely to cooperate in investigations. As a result, disputes that involve potential violence or the breaking of laws are often settled … not by the authorities … but by others who exhibit authority, empowering gangs and gang leaders.
Both sides are happy? Yes, the social damage to our community has not been undone and probably will not be … and it has led to a thinning out of the undocumented population or at least the perception of that based on ethnic concentrations in certain neighborhoods.
And, those of us who were not fans of the Immigration Resolution are glad to see the most dangerous, possibly unconstitutional provision removed.
“The behavior and the rhetoric used by Greg Letiecq, Corey Stewart, John Stirrup, and many highly agitated citizens has created a reputation for this county that no law could undo, and, frankly, no law could have created. ”
Wow, sounds bad. Not nearly as bad as living in an overpopulated ghetto though which is what my neighborhood was becoming.
@Rick Bentley
Rick, you could have had a better neighborhood without all the nonsense and expense of the resolution.
Any place that depends on politics and taxes to clean up a neighborhood will eventually become a ghetto again.
The illegal immigration problem could be solved, if we followed the Rule Of Law, and enforced the laws already on the books – namely, hiring eligible individuals, not paying cash, not 1099’ing employees, etc.
Often times, when an employer is caught, it is treated as a white collar crime, “cause no one got hurt”, and the fines are minimal. – Treat the disease, not the symptom.
So far it has not exactly been proven to me that my old neighborhood could have been improved in any way. Actually, so far it hasn’t been. Last night I received the latest Point of Woods newsletter in the mail – let’s just say reading it – I can see nothing has changed. HUGE graffiti issues, trash, broken glass, etc. Sounds just the same as when i left. Nothing’s changed. Maybe now efforts underway will change it, but that remains to be seen. The HOA did their usual rants about all this stuff, but offered no solutions. Typical. Those that haven’t recently lived in this neighborhood, like me, Rick, and others, just have no clue how bad it can really get. I’m glad Rick’s neighborhood has improved. Sadly, my old neighborhood, in the City of Manassas, has not seemed to. The only improvements I observed is the two flophouses across the street from me went into foreclosure last summer, and about the time I moved out at the end of last October – two nice looking Hispanic FAMILIES moved into them. That’s an improvement. Otherwise, besides foreclosures cleaning out disgusting people living in the neighborhood, nothing much has changed it appears. As far as I can tell, the flophouse next to me is still owned by the same person, and I’m sure it’s still being run as a flophouse, unless something has been done to change that. City records indicate that person paid a lot of money for it – as he bought it 4 years ago roughly – so obviously he would have to sell at a huge loss. As best I’ve been able to find out – that person has never been a resident – he’s always been a landlord from day one! Obviously bought it for the sole purpose of being a flophouse, and a slum landlord!
Anyway, I’m kind of with Rick on his latest post. Now, I won’t argue the idea that neighborhoods that get cleaned up via “politics and taxes” may not stay cleaned up. I’m sure that may quite possibly be true.
That is why I have little hope for Point of Woods, and I just voted with my pocketbook essentially, and moved out of there. In 2 years I’ll sell the place for whatever I can get for it (so I don’t pay any capital gains tax on whatever I get for it over the $80K I paid for it), and just walk away completely from Point of Woods, and never look back. The latest newsletter from the HOA that I got last night tells me nothing has changed. It came as usual in both English and Spanish editions – so there’s no excuse that the Spanish residents don’t know the rules. They’ve been doing that for 4 years, so no one can say they don’t know that it isn’t nice to put out trash on non-trash days. They did slightly mess up this time – whoever translated it into Spanish – a few of the headlines on the Spanish edition of it were left accidentally in English! But that’s the first time I saw that screwup. Anyway, you can read the rest of those 3 articles in spanish, and still proabbly get their entire meaning. There’s roughly 10 articles, so only 3 did not get their headlines translated to Spanish, obviously just an oversight!
Indeed, I agree – let’s go after the employers who employ people who don’t have permission to work here in the US! Lock them up just like any other criminal, and maybe if we provide enough disincentives for businesses to hire people not authorized to work here, that will put a stop to it.
Any company who’s business model depends on paying below legal wages to people, or making use of cheap labor, should be forced out of business. A lot of companies that follow the laws – this makes it much harder for them to compete in the marketplace. The companies that break the laws have an unfair advantage. There should be heavy fines and jail terms for company owners that repeatedly engage in this, and all companies should be made to verify a worker’s right to work. This seems like it would go a long way to fixing the problem.
Lucky Duck, thanks for the further clarification. It sort of makes you wonder why anyone would want to come here without documentation. If I were Chief Deane I would still be insisting on those cameras.
I think I am reading this as, if you are not breaking criminal laws, you will be left alone. If you are breaking traffic laws or criminal laws, and you are caught, you will be put into the immigration system. Am I reading this correctly now?
Who is ‘we’ Pat? Doesn’t this fall under federal jurisdiction? Do the feds have the manpower to investigate and make all these arrests?
Do you want PWC to have to pay to enforce these laws? I don’t think our local police or sheriff’s office have this authority, but I could be wrong.
PWC can’t do a damn thing about people not paying their taxes. All that does is cost us money while we spin our wheels hunting down people who owe the IRS. Besides that, “white collar criminals” get away with it all the time. We tell them to pay it all back. So we should expect the same from everyone who has not paid taxes. This isn’t a criminal offense. Outside of that, how many undocumented immigrants do you know could earn the kind of money Enron scum did?
@Rick Bentley
Certain neighborhoods have improved, Rick, but it is also true that an a sledgehammer can cure a toothache.
The notion that picking someone up for a broken tail light or driving without a license has ever truly resulted in an actual deportation is suspect. In actuality there will be a lengthy procedure likely 2 or 3 years before there’s even a preliminary hearing on the case. Then these cases have been purposely drawn out in the hopes that there will be some future changes in laws.
Funding is limited and there really has to be an accounting for how money is being spent and whether or not there is an actual cost benefit.
The constant subversion of law by the wealthy is not a “toothache”; neither is the lack of national security implicit in it.
Yes, MH, you are correct. Stay completely out of contact and you’ll have no trouble.
Alanna, you’re also right…immediate deportation is a long shot. But what the encounter does is get someone onto ICE’s radar with court dates and appearances that they did not have prior to the encounter. That only happens in Prince William County.
However, a number of illegal immigrants have failed to show up under the Federal Government’s old “catch and release” policy and have outstanding deportation orders on them. Those folks can be fast tracked out of the country. I’ve spoken to ICE agents who confirmed this scenario.
Yes, we is not only PWC, we is WE.
As in, your neighbor who is a business owner and pays cash with a nod and a wink. We is WE, as in you and me when we pay cash to bet a better discount. And, We is our local, state and federal government who can go after tax avoiding individuals and corporations, unlicensed contractors and others.
The illegal immigrant comes here for one reason – WE, as in our society – hire them to do our labor. Cut off the job – cuts off the incentive to be here.
Lucky Duck is correct in that people who have initially been picked up for traffic violations and then found to have false IDs or prior felony convictions/deportations/deportation orders can be fast tracked through the federal court system.
@Pat.Herve
You are right about that, Pat.
Wow. A lot of great posts here today. Thanks everyone for the informative discussion and insights. How long has it been now and we’re finally coming to an agreement on what the law is and what the heck happened? Well, if anyone understands it, it’s the people who contribute to this ongoing people’s history of PWC. Bravo everyone!
Obviously, on the first paragraph above is a quote, the 2nd is what I wrote.
No, GR, I’m not saying tax evasion isn’t criminal. Tax evasion in the serious sense is criminal IF it can be proven that you were trying to get out of paying taxes and weren’t just making mistakes from ignorance or whatever. I’m not a lawyer, so I have no idea at what point people are convicted for tax evasion, but I do know plenty of people who didn’t file their taxes on time, knew they were late and just had to pay back with interest. In fact, some people have years missing from their tax records, and they don’t get brought to court or anything. I guess it’s due to our inefficient tax system that this can happen.
If suddenly we gave undocumented immigrants the chance to earn citizenship but they had not paid taxes via a tax ID number, I suppose they would have to just pay it all back with interest like others who owe back-taxes.
GR, I found this interesting:
“The process whereby a person, through commission of fraud, unlawfully pays less tax than the law mandates.
Tax evasion is a criminal offense under federal and state statutes. A person who is convicted is subject to a prison sentence, a fine, or both. The failure to file a federal tax return is a misdemeanor, but a consistent pattern of failure to file for several years will constitute evidence that these failures were part of a scheme to avoid the payment of taxes. If this pattern is established, the violator may be charged with a felony under section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 63 S. Ct. 364, 87 L. Ed. 418 (1943), ruled that an overt act is necessary to give rise to the crime of income tax evasion. Therefore, the government must show that the taxpayer attempted to evade the tax rather than passively neglected to file a return, which could be prosecuted under section 7203 as a misdemeanor. A person who has evaded taxes over the course of several years may be charged with multiple counts for each year taxes were allegedly evaded.
According to the Supreme Court in Sansone v. United States, 380 U.S. 343, 85 S. Ct. 1004, 13 L. Ed. 2d 882 (1965), a conviction under section 7201 requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to each of three elements: the existence of a tax deficiency, willfulness in an attempted evasion of tax, and an affirmative act constituting an evasion or attempted evasion of the tax.
An affirmative act is anything done to mislead the government or conceal funds to avoid payment of an admitted and accurate deficiency. Affirmative behavior can take two forms: the evasion of assessment and the evasion of payment. Affirmative acts of evasion include evading taxes by placing assets in another’s name, dealing in cash, and having receipts or debts paid through and in the name of another person. Merely failing to pay assessed tax, without more, does not constitute tax evasion.
The keeping of a double set of books or the making of false invoices or documents can be proof of tax evasion. In some cases the mailing of a false return may constitute the overt act required under section 7201.”
http://www.answers.com/topic/tax-evasion
I propose a Taxation Resolution, in which Prince William County taxpayers will get to pay extra taxes at the local level so that we can train police officers to go after people who don’t pay their FEDERAL taxes who live in our county. I’m running for County Chair. A person who doesn’t pay taxes is ILLEGAL! From now on the police will pull over anyone who looks like they are late on their taxes or they might have cheated. The more expensive your car, the more likely you’ll get pulled over. But everyone who is a suspect. Vote for me.
Can someone please confirm that 287(G) was voted upon and approved in 2006? That does not fit my recollection. I recall Chief Deane talking about 287(G) in late 2007. It seemed as if this was part of the infamous resolution.
@ShellyB
LMAO!
Shelly…
Last Best Hope, here is some info from the county’s website. Sounds as though it – 287 (G) -was implemented at the jail in July 2007. Must have been voted on prior to that.
http://www.pwcgov.org/default.aspx?topic=040086003470004872
I’m surprised none of those people had a stroke screaming “illegal” so loud. Freakin’ hilarious.