From the Study of Prince William County Police Illegal Immigration Enforcement Policy Interim Report 2009:
“Most of the illegal immigrant arrestees referred to ICE have committed only minor crimes. If the objective of the County’s immigration enforcement effort is to reduce serious crime, then the current policy does not provide a very efficient means of achieving it. If the objective is to remove illegal immigrants, then ICE does not have sufficient resources to handle the large numbers of referrals that would result. ICE currently tries to limit the types of offenses for which it will pick up illegal immigrants to more serious crimes in jurisdictions other than Prince William County.”
It is clear to me that this one, brief but succinct paragraph, just about sums up why I feel like this county’s policy has no real direction. What is this policy suppose to do? Because from this interim UVA report, both objectives are failing.
Although the supervisors were unanimous in their vote for the immigration-related law enforcement policy in July and October 2007, they were divided in their thoughts about what the policy should do.
When we spoke with them in summer 2008, the supervisors listed their own motivations for supporting the policy. Of the five supervisors we spoke with, four had participated in the initial unanimous vote in October 2007 (the fifth was elected in November 2007 on a platform opposing the policy). Among them, two indicated that the policy, which they supported and thought would improve public safety, was directed only toward criminal illegal immigrants. A third supervisor said that the initial motivation was to try to reduce such neighborhood conditions as overcrowding in homes, cars parked on lawns and crowded emergency departments in the local hospitals. The fourth supervisor reported that the policy was intended to remove all illegal immigrants from the county. Members of the Board of Supervisors also thought that the policy could reduce costs and save the public money, as indicated in the framing of the resolution.
How can we accurately determine whether the policy is reaching its intended goals if our Supervisors don’t agree on what the policy is suppose to achieve.
What is this post supposed to achieve? No real direction? Supervisors don’t agree? That’s all you got? Tisk, Tisk, this just won’t do! How about calling UVA a hate group!
They voted for it because the people demanded it of them. Had they chosen not to, they would be voted out of office ala Herndon a few years ago. This is democracy in action. Most of us live, work, and shop in different circumstances than the board members and were well aware that our community was becoming a place that people didn’t want to live in.
Sour Grapes! Give it up, the people other than the BOCS have spoken, and if it came to a public vote it would still pass with great percentage. We just need to ensure that we aren’t caught sleeping when the economy finally recovers, or we’ll have billboards in Manassas again along with overcrowded houses!
BTW, the end goal was to reduce the number of illegal aliens residing in our communities. To that end, BINGO!
I don’t see anything bad in the fact the supervisors had different motivations for the policy or different thoughts about what the policy was to accomplish. I would wager that any complex issue as this – when a new law is passed, the people voting for it would also have different motivations. The whole immigration issue is a complicated topic. It would have surprised me if the study found all 8 supervisors in exact agreement on why they voted for the initial policy, or what they hoped for it to accomplish.
A crime is a crime. If the worst of the worst have fled to Maryland and only the petty criminals chose to stay, then that is a success in and of itself. It’s not our problem that ICE is inefficient and underfunded. The Fed Govt. should be allocating more money to them rather then the trillions of $$ into bone-headed bailouts and “stimulus”.
Anyone been keeping up with the goings on in MD lately? That would’ve been us. Now the NIMBY’s over there are howling. They deserve what they’re getting.
Like Rick said, the supervisors thoughts are irrelevant. They represent their constituents. They HAVE to do what their voters ask of them or face the consequences.
Supervisors who want to use a sweeping, overly-expensive, threat-of-racial-profiling policy put out by a nutcase-led group to clean up neighborhoods?? Who the hell are we electing to serve us?
I would love to see every undocumented immigrant who has not committed a criminal offense surge back into this county, take good care of their homes and tell the BOCS this is NOT how you treat people who have helped the local and national economy.
Why the BOCS would purposefully elect to piss these people (and many others) off and ruin the name of this county is beyond me.
How do you know the supervisors represented their constituents? They represented the squeaky wheels helped along by a flood of non-constituents’ emails from FAIR.
I’d venture to say that the majority of PWC residents are unaffected by your problems. Some particular neighborhoods have more problems than others and those should have been addressed by an increase in police patrols and more Neighborhood Services personnel – plus stricter zoning enforcement. An Immigration Resolution solves none of those issues.
I suppose police crime stats could tell whether crimes increased or decreased after the resolution, but that would have to be tempered with other factors. The supervisor who expected that all illegal immigrants would be removed from the county is a total bozo. Even felons removed by ICE come back. By the way, have we ever seen stats on the number of people deported,not just referred to ICE?
The problem is some percentage of them won’t take good care of their homes – there used to be 3 examples on my street of flophouses, and those homes were NOT well taken care of. And while I know you can’t say for sure who is illegal and who isn’t, the police told me undocumented people were living in the house next to me – those that stole from my house, and I have no doubt that other flophouses – have undocumented immigrants in them too.
“Supervisors who want to use a sweeping, overly-expensive, threat-of-racial-profiling policy put out by a nutcase-led group to clean up neighborhoods??”
From reading yours and others posts for over a year now, I’m absolutely POSITIVE that your angst has little to do with the resolution and most to do with your personal axe to grind with Greg.
Crime stats aren’t going to tell for several years whether crimes have increased or decreased – just doing a one year comparison is statistically invalid. Only a several year trend, if it happens, will tell the story. And even then, there’s no way to separate it from other causes that may have made the amount of crime go up or down. In reality, I don’t think anyone will ever know what impact the resolution had on crime.
And, as far as helping the local economy. The people who bought houses with zero documentation loans, at prices they obviously could not pay for, are among those who are responsible for helping to ruin the housing market. In recent times, I’m not so sure how much they’ve helped the economy.
Actually, you know what – let them all come back, reestablish some of the former flophouses, and then we’ll watch property values decrease some more – yes, that’s a great plan.
I find it interesting the report says something like 80% of those surveyed view the resolution favorably, yet it is claimed by some people that the BOCS was misled by a small minority. Somehow, those two things seem contradictory to me – so that says one of two things: either the report is completely inaccurate about how many people favor the resolution, or the statement that the BOCS was misled by some small minority is incorrect. It can’t be that both statements are correct, that just doesn’t make sense.
The report is a huge one. It cannot realistically be all handled in one thread. There is a link to the report posted above.
What hit me during the presentation, reading insidenova, and looking at the report is, that no real conclusions can be drawn. Any one of us could pull out highlights we liked to prove our point. Someone else could come along and do the opposite.
However, one thing Elena and I felt was important: Not all the supervisors agreed on what the Resolution should do and many of them thought it would do things it would not do. 5 supervisors were referred to.
How can our supervisors lead, via Resolution, when they aren’t all in agreement on what the legislation is supposed to do? It seems to me that if they had slowed down, talked about desirable outcomes with each other, and set goals, rather than blasting everyone with a surprise Resolution, they might have saved the county much angst and ended up with measurable outcomes that actually solved real problems.
Actually, I take back what I said regarding that 80% number. The “Inside NOVA” article is misleading – the 80% number is those who are satisifed with how the police handled the implementation of the policy. I would like to see a number indicating how many people are satisifed with the policy as a whole – maybe it is somewhere in the report.
“I would love to see every undocumented immigrant who has not committed a criminal offense surge back into this county”
You are living in a strange fantasy land. Here in reality there are plenty of immigrants living in PWC and moving into PWC.
You are so far out of touch with reality that it might be best for you to stop posting, go take a walk around, and smell the roses.
“Not all the supervisors agreed on what the Resolution ”
or wanted to vote for it
or understood what their constituents really wanted
or know their anus from a hole in the ground
Rick, I think it’s just that you have to live next to a flophouse, to be able to savor the full effect of it. Those who haven’t had the “living next to a flophouse full of 10+ people experience” just don’t have any feel for how bad it is. But, I can guarantee, if every undocumented immigrant who hasn’t cmomitted a criminal offense surges back into the county – we’ll have a surge in flophouses, and property values will decrease as a result.
“It seems to me that if they had slowed down, talked about desirable outcomes with each other, and set goals”
Then they would have reacted too slowly and many would not have been re-elected. Your hero Greg L. might be running PWC by now if the board members had the integrity to stand up for what, in their feeble minds, some of them thought/think is/was right.
As far as I’m concerned it’s Stirrup and Stewart and 7 others who don’t have the foggiest idea what is going on around them. Though I give a few points to Caddigan, I think she did at least understand what was happening and occasionally articulated it.
GR maybe we can speak at a board meting and recommend that the County purchase a flophouse somewhere, or even just an apartment in a bad neighborhood and the Supervisors can rotate spending a few days at a time there, a “get in touch with your constituents” program.
I know that you’re right about property values. I know that many long-time residents around me BAILED OUT as fast as they could and that a lot of people just cannot and will not live in a neighborhood like mine was becoming.
“It seems to me that if they had slowed down, talked about desirable outcomes with each other, and set goals”
That’s exactly what happened. Maybe not perfectly, but neither side got exactly what they wanted but they all knew voters wanted the illegal alien issue dealt with. I think everyone got a little of what they wanted and that’s all you can ask for.
GR, off topic, where’s the concern over the fact that the officer told you that the folks next door were undocumented? Isn’t that revealing too much info to you? Any similarities to what the other officer told Eric?
Actually, since the average flophouse holds 10 or more people, it appears to me there’s room for all 8 supervisors to live there at the same time! But otherwise, your idea sounds good to me.
And of course, I’m one of those long time residents of my neighborhood that finally bailed, when I decided the flophouses were taking over my neighborhood.
I’ve actually heard reports that my neighborhood is looking better – although I think it’s due to the economy and some of those flophouses going to foreclosure and then being bought by people who aren’t using them as flophouses. I’ve been watching the sales prices on townhouses in my neighborhood – and they’ve really risen greatly in the past few months – from just over $100K to more like $130K or $140K, which is actually higher than the assessed value.
So that’s all I need to happen, is for more undocumented people come back to the neighborhood, the flophouses start up again, and property values plunge. I will admit to not having seen the neighborhood since January (I have no desire to visit it) but from what I’ve heard things seem to be improving there, and I know the two flophouses across the street from me went into foreclosure last year, and were sold to what appeared to be Hispanic families. If only that would happen to the flophouse next to my old house and some other flophouses around the neighborhood, things might be better.
Censored – he told me that because he could not get any ID on the suspects who robbed my house. I think THAT is information I should have known. Also, because those suspects fled and were never seen again, and therefore they got away with the crime.
I don’t see how that compares AT ALL with Eric’s case. How is it even similar? There wasn’t a crime in Eric’s case, in my case there was a huge crime, by my own neighbors! Talk about apples and oranges.
And actually, the Manassas City police did a terrible job in handling my case. Instead of arresting the culprits, they apparently wanted to wait until the following day so the person who saw them running from my house, could make a statement or something down at the police station. Meanwhile, that gave these crooks an excuse to flee, since they had no ID to start off with – no driver’s license, passport, etc. So yes, I think as the victim of a crime I deserved to have the police officer tell me about their status. Again, I see this as apples and oranges, and also, for the most part the Manassas City Police did a lousy job investigating what happened in my particular case.
GR, I don’t see a problem with either officer’s discussions. Someone could probably FOIA the info anyway – not sure of this if there’s an active investigation. Once an officer mistook my house for one that they were investigating. When he realized his mistake, he shot the breeze for a few minutes. In the process, he told me of a neighbor’s death. I was shocked because she, the neighbor, had told me that she was going to see her sister in Ohio. Much of this is just normal conversation. (This belongs in the other thread. Sorry, M-h.)
I’ll try to dig up a recent article about how “we ain’t seen nothing yet” when it comes to foreclosures and their accompanying problems. If no Hispanic person ever lived in PWC, we’d still have had the same problems in neighborhoods. I betcha.
Sounds like our usual right wing extremist chorus didn’t bother to read this report beyond Elena’s quoting of it. I admit to only reading the summary, but more than you guys.
Here is what I got. It debunks Corey Stewart and Greg Letiecq’s irresponsible, offensive, and self-serving claims about illegal immigrants and crime statistics in a very simple and concise fashion. Over all crime is slightly up since the immigration wars. But violent crime is down thanks to a big drop in one category: aggravated assault. The report explains in plain terms that “Illegal immigrants are a small percentage of those arrested for violent crimes, so it seems unlikely that the policy was a primary cause for the county’s drop in serious violence.” Thank you UVA! Perhaps the report later mentions that violent crime was down all over the region in 2008 including a big drop in DC.
The summary makes a point of the fact that the Citizen Survey shows that Latinos and African Americans have had a large drop in the way they view the police department. But it did remind me of something positive I forgot. Although satisfaction with the police dropped from 97 percent to 73 percent among Latinos, 73 is still pretty good. Or at least higher than I would guess. Both Latinos and African Americans had a big drop in trust in county government.
I was surprised that they estimate only 5000 immigrants left the county in the 18 months from mid-2007 to 2008. In a county of 360,000, this is another reason to doubt the claim that having less immigrants in the county means less aggravated assaults. That’s truly offensive to try to pin aggravated assaults on a certain group. Especially when all the statistics put the lie to such prejudice.
The report says that legal and illegal immigrants as well as Latinos in general do not feel as safe or welcome in the county as they did before. Latinos who said they’d like to continue to live in the county saw a 35 percentage point drop. Meanwhile, the rest of the county showed no increase in feeling safe. But they also did not show a decrease in feeling safe in 2008 or during the rise in Latino numbers over the past decade. So not only was there no effect in terms of crime stats (other than ending a 15 year trend of crime going down), there was no effect in terms of people feeling safe.
The only people who feel good about this disaster live in two areas of the county. The other 5 districts and the other 350,000 people in the county are wondering why we spent 14,000,000 dollars to end up back where we started with a policy almost the same as the state of Virginia’s policy.
I said things were improving in Point of wds. And everyone knows *I* am not to be believed. (abbreviating so as to not set off alarms on anti)
Mando, I beg to differ. The report states that the supervisors didn’t really establish goals or desirable outcomes (my words not theirs). Had they done that like normal governing bodies are supposed to work together, perhaps we would’t have had to change the ordinances of PWC as often, perhaps we wouldn’t have wasted as much money, perhaps we wouldn’t have different directives that kept changing for our police officers.
Perhaps hammering out those differences would have made a difference in the overall way people perceive the immigration situation in PW. Maybe we wouldn’t have people feeling like you, Rick and Gainesville and then people who don’t seem to have any idea that you all did suffer from neighborhood situations.
Any environment created where there is less animous would be better.
Here’s the link to what we may come to expect in the next few years. Wonder what impact this will have on crime, vacant properties, the tax base, etc.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090805/bs_nm/us_usa_housing_deutschebank
OH, I don’t doubt that due to the economy and the amount of more affordable housing, we’d still have foreclosures and a very bad housing market in PWC, even if no Hispanics lived here. I don’t doubt that at all.
And, I am sure there’s another wave of foreclosures coming – from some more recent high risk loan activity. I’ve heard that from a number of sources.
However, flophouses do nothing to help the value of a neighborhood’s real estate – and up until a few years ago, there weren’t any flophouses at least on my street. I don’t know about other streets in the neighgborhood.
The county hasn’t spent $14,000,000 yet. That’s the five year cost Shelly B. I think we’re only done w/ the first two years or so (we just started a new fiscal year). And again, as I have said ad nauseum on here, those costs are for 287g at the jail and the criminal alien unit. The “resolution” (i.e. check immigration status after arrest) doesn’t cost anything except for the staff time that was eaten up during the hoopla (and, arguably, other costs like increased foreclosures, bad press etc–but these are not quantifiable and are only speculative/anecdotal anyway). So, with that said, to save some of the remaining $9 million or so yet to spent, do you propose the county scrap 287g at the jail or the criminal alien unit or both?
meh…
The majority of PWC residents support it. Frankly, that’s all that matters. If you don’t like that, find a different county to live in.
Gainesville, you are right that the crime rate going up slightly since the immigration war means very little. But you do realize that Corey Stewarts successful propaganda campaign to lie about crime stastics and cover his behind is the primary reason that people say the are glad of what happened to this county. If Corey wasn’t playing to the false prejudice that immigrants are more likely criminals, he’d have to deal with voters asking him why he wasted 14,000,000 dollars of taxpayer money and worsening the effects of the economic downturn. So I agree with you. I am just trying to clear away Corey’s smoke screen.
Mando, No, that isn’t the answer. I never commented whether I liked it or didn’t like it. You are aware that the original Resolution that everyone cheered and back-slapped over doesn’t exist, don’t you?
I can’t force you to read any more than you can force me to move. (bet I am more firmly entrenched than you are here) However, it is better governing for the supervisors to have come up with goals first, then ordiances to enact those goals.
Surely no one really thinks that 100 page report draws any real conclusions do they? It is like the Bible. You can go through and pick and choose what you want to prove.
And Mando, I think most people (most, not all) prefer the post arrest Resolution rather than the probably cause resolution. Why do I say that? Because I do. PWCPD cannot do the job of ICE. ICE can’t even do the job of ICE.
@Mando
LMAO! Mando, I assure you I would never dedicate two years of protest against a single man. I testified to the BOCS before GL even had an inkling of who I was. In my testimony, I mentioned potential liabilities, fiscally and socially. We have seen these liabilities come to fruition. It’s not that I am some prophet. It’s just that those who know something about the way people react could have figured out this was a stupid policy that would not fix the problems complained about.
@GainesvilleResident
GR, believe me, I do not endorse flop houses. I endorse smart solutions. The resolution wasn’t a solution. It was a problem.
Shellyb, did you see Corey on channel 8 yesterday at 4 pm? He was still singing his reduced crime song. I wish he would just be specific rather than using the broad brush.
“Perhaps hammering out those differences would have made a difference ”
My neighborhood was devolving fast. I resent that so much time was wated as it was. All this over whether or not to ignore US law in favor of rewarding lawbreakers. Makes me sick.
Some of you here really believe that “leadership” from “gifted” “elitist” “leaders” could have provided some graceful fairy-tale solution where you could feel genteel about things. This is hardly the case. Your real issue isn’t with Corey Stewart, or the BOS. It’s with your neighbors, your fellow Americans, your fellow human beings. face it, the majority of Americans and the majority of PWC do not want to welcome illegal immigrants into their communities.
If Corey Stewart was soft on this issue, if he soft-shoed it and asked for more time, he wouldn’t have my vote. As it was he does, now and forever.
@Rick Bentley
So you believe neighborhood services is an elite, useless group? I will be sure to pass that on to the local government, Rick.
You apparently also believe that teachers and community workers are elitist, useless people. Nothing like insulting another entire population.
We have something against our fellow human beings? One could say that HSM and company do, evidenced by their persecution of immigrants in general.
I have something against policy that doesn’t work and people who “lead” by following directives from groups that have no business running our local government.
I also have something against overt racism. I don’t like illegal immigration, either.
I don’t like policy that allowed it to happen or that allows people in the country and then turns its back while local crazies persecute those same people. I don’t like radical groups that target minorities, women, gay people and anyone who speaks out against their actions.
Rick, you’re blaming immigrants instead of the banking industry. When you have the cheapest housing in the area and loan qualifications are thrown out of the window, you see properties bought by people who wouldn’t qualify to own a house otherwise.
Rick, I am sure he will be glad to hear that. What about when he moves on to another topic he feels will get him elected?
You are aware that other groups other than illegal immigrants can tear up a neighborhood? I felt like you feel now, many years ago. My neighborhood went from being mostly young middle class to trash city over a summer. To my knowlege, no illegal immigrants were involved. The only Hispanic involved was the HOA lawyer. It wasn’t an illegal immigrant issue at all. Frankly, it was a socio-econimic class issue.
ShellyB, again, you are talking about “wasting” $14 million dollars, the majority of which has not yet been spent. What is the waste; 287g at the jail, the criminal alien unit or both…just trying to understand your perspective here.
@food for thought
Good. Then let’s reassess before we spend the rest of it. Do a study. If the program has been worth its cost, then it gets budgeted. If not, we spend our money elsewhere and let the cops do what they could do without the policy. Remember–they didn’t need this policy or any of the stupidity that came with it to report illegal immigrants to ICE.
I am glad to hear we didnt waste $14 million dollars. That’s a lot of money. I stayed confused over the money situation regarding the resolution. Much of the finances were obfuscated in resolution terminology I just didn’t understand.
I think what many of us are trying to say is we don’t like HOW things were done more than we don’t like something like the 287(g) program. I have no beef with that or the criminal alien unit. I realize that undocumented residents have special legal considerations and they need to be dealt with. So it is the HOW not the WHAT at least for me.
@Moon-howler
“So it is the HOW not the WHAT at least for me.”
YES!
Pinko, this is the study. The BOCS directed the PWCPD to assess their new situation by an outside agency.
“Rick, you’re blaming immigrants instead of the banking industry”
Well, we can’t deport banking executives. In fact all we can seemingly do is to bail them out with taxpayer money. But yes they are in cahoots big-time. They lobbied Congress to do away with the concept of needing proper ID from a person before lending them mortgages – created a culture of abject fraud – it’s disgusting. They snuch a provision through Congress to allow use of “matricula consular cards” for loans and bank accounts, and then started aggressively marketing to the illegal market, in broad daylight but IN SPANISH. The full picture has yet to be laid out for most people. If and when they understand it, they’ll be even angrier.
– Note that the Resolution, at least in part, has done what it
was intended to do AND has not left PWC on the short end of
a DOJ, HUD, AOL, ERC, HOME,etc. lawsuit. Despite lambasting
from the HSM crowd, Chef Deane and others who “cleaned it up”,
actually saved it in the long run. Many jurisdictions
that attempted much the same thing have ended up in a costly
legal train wreck.
– And, once again, I contend the poor economy has had as much,
if not more impact, than the Resolution on immigration in PWC.
– 80% of citizens support the Resolution. Like it or not, that is
impressive.
@Moon-howler
“The BOCS directed the PWCPD to assess their new situation by an outside agency.”
Did they do that already and will it be done again for the next fiscal year? If we are going to continue to pay for this program, we should know if it is worth the cost, IMO.