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.

 

153 Thoughts to “What is this policy meant to do?”

  1. Censored bybvbl

    Mando, I think that the BOCS should seriously start to consider steps they can take to keep all neighborhoods stable. We’re likely to see a large increase in foreclosures in the next few years and we’d better be prepared to address the problems – from vacant properties, weeds,falling tax bases,etc. Many HOAs will be lucky if they can collect the funds to maintain common property. Homes bought with conventional loans by qualified buyers are likely to go to foreclosure. I think this is going to be a huge problem nationwide. (I almost hestitate to post any of this because there will soon be some moron who will blame Obama for the entire mess. Tick, tick, tick…)

  2. Censored bybvbl

    Oops, sorry, Mando, that should be addressed to SA.

  3. Second-Alamo

    You see, there is no concrete solutions to the problems that were causing such frustration with the PWC community. If there had been a readily available solution it would have been enforced, and perhaps the Resolution wouldn’t have been created. So the problem is that if faced with a growing problem of overcrowding, streets swamped with vehicles, and 7-11’s jammed with day laborers, then it will again force another Resolution. So instead of complaining about the existing Resolution and whether it worked or not how about creating a legal method of enforcing rules that will maintain our standard of living so that citizens don’t have to run to the BOCS. None here have done anything more than say it could have been handled by zoning enforcement, but that sounds too simple otherwise we would have heard that comment over and over at the marathon debate back then. Manassas tried and failed don’t forget.

  4. Gainesville Resident

    I’ll give you my definition of a flophouse based on personal experience – a 3 bedroom townhouse with 10 or more people living in it, some of whom only have access to the basement, and with people who come and go all hours of the day and night and maybe rent rooms by the month. The cast of characters is continually changing from one month to the next. It is also a place that while it would seem to be meant for people to sleep, quite often has loud music emanating from it at all hours of the day and night. Usually all male, but from time to time an occaisional female can be seen on the premises. Garbage is usually strewn in front of their property 7 days a week, as obviously there’s no room to store the garbage inside the house. Also, they never cut their grass, even though there’s plenty of able bodied residents that could do so. Well, they’d cut it, but maybe only after someone chased after them to do it – as usually the pattern would be the grass would grow to about 1 foot high, and then it would get cut, and the cycle would start all over again.

    That’s MY definition of a flophouse. However, all the elements above don’t have to be present – basically if there’s 10 people, mostly young males, living in a 3 bedroom townhouse – that’s enough to convince me it’s a flophouse.

  5. Second-Alamo

    Sorry Shelly, but Greg had nothing to do with my feelings about what was happening to our community. My attention was first drawn to the goings on in Herndon coupled with a late night visit to our local Wal-Mart which afterwards made me believe I was no longer in the US. I even mentioned to my wife that If I didn’t know better I would swear we just stepped across the border from Tijuana. Not racist, (just to beat you to the punch) but so overwhelmingly obvious that it was shocking. Until then I hadn’t even noticed the increase in Hispanics that was occurring. Then, I find that many of these people causing problems at the Herndon 7-11 were in the country illegally, and that really disgusted me. The fact that problems were being caused by people who should not even be in this country took the cake. Over the course of the next year it seems that the numbers were doubling every few months along with the problems being reported.

  6. Censored bybvbl

    SA, for a couple decades any problems I had with noise, barking dogs, overflowing septics,etc. were handled well by the pertinent county agencies. Then more recently, it became harder to get zoning infractions resolved. I don’t know if the problem was a lack of staff, inadequate funding, too large an increase in complaints for staff to handle,or leadership problems. Two complaints I’ve had in the past year have been addressed with very different results even though the complaints involved the exact same zoning issue. One inspector resolved the problem quickly and communicated well. The other was totally useless – and I mean useless. Why the difference? I don’t know. Maybe that department needs more staff or more follow-up. All I know is that the resolution did nothing and would do nothing to solve those problems in my neighborhood.

  7. @ShellyB
    “Saying this blog caused racial division in the county is like saying a boat caused the lake to be wet.”

    LOL! Great simile!

  8. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Censored bybvbl :
    Slowpoke, you can dance around the issue of xenophobia all you like but it doesn’t change the fact that too many people got up at the marathon BOCS meeting and told of their fear of “illegals”. Since it’s obvious that they couldn’t tell that people were illegally here by looking at them and that the majority of people who showed up at the meeting were Hispanic, I think one can safely conclude that they were fearful of Hispanics. Xenophobia is simply fear of the foreign.
    Hee hee, laughing at the touch of “kiddies” name-calling…

    And we’ve reached the point here where we can go no further. Most pro-illegal types can’t understand the concept of a law, so they just do what all liberals do and yell racist (or Xenophobe in the case of illegal immigration) and call it a day. If you can’t understand that the law applies equally to all people regardless of skin color, then it all comes down to votes. In a similar vein, congrats on Sotomayor!

  9. Second-Alamo

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/08/06/mexico.drug.cartels/index.html

    Question, do any of these people look familiar? You see, you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys just by looks alone. That’s why we can’t have ‘undocumented’ people living amongst us who come from the same region. At what point does this finally become such a large threat that we send troops to our border, and the hell with other country’s security?

  10. Second-Alamo

    If Sotomayor doesn’t bring any Latino bias to the Supreme Court, then why this quote from the La Raza president?:

    “Finally, our community has representation on the highest court in the land. For that reason and many others, this vote matters to Latinos and it matters to our country. Latinos will always remember who recognized the significance of this nomination and did everything possible to make this long-deferred dream a reality for the Hispanic community,” Murguía concluded.

    Surely I thought the justices ruled for all people of this country irrespective of race, but perhaps our fears are justified…………we’ll see!

  11. Mando

    Elena :
    I”ll take that as a compliment Mando. If someone called my children parasites, I would be horrifed, sorry you don’t feel the same way.@Mando

    You prove my point. You should provide Webster with your picture so they can add it next to the definition.

    And I will repeat,

    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.

  12. Gainesville Resident

    The thing is, some people would like everyone to believe that a great majority of those who believe the current form of the resolution is good, have that opinion regarding the “parasites” comment – that is they agree with it. I think that can’t be further from the truth – but that seems to be thinking among those who trot out that comment everytime this subject comes up. It was probably a comment made by one person, but then we should be made to believe everyone agrees with that comment who supports the resolution in its current form.

  13. Moon-howler

    Guys, when your gender and ethnicity is always represented because that is just how things are, it is difficult to understand how someone who isn’t a white male could feel about ‘representation.’ As a white woman, it is always good to see females appointed to various roles.

    When I was first out on my own, there were very few professional jobs open to women and only the brainiacs got to go to law school. Having said that, I don’t know what its like to someone non-white to have representation somewhere, but I expect it is pretty much like seeing a female run for president. It just hasn’t happened before. It is probably a big deal to the Latino community, sort of like how Thurgood Marshall was important to blacks and Sandra Day O’Connor was to women.

    The law is never decided in a vacuum, regardless of how much we want it to be unbiased. Look at Roberts and corporate America.

  14. Moon-howler

    Mando,

    ” find a different county to live in” is getting old. That isn’t up to you to decide. We can all voice our opinions about how our county is to be run.

    Meanwhile, I suggest you read that 100 page report. You will find that there are some discrepancies in how various people feel. Is this no longer allowed in the world of Mando?

  15. Moon-howler

    This might be a good time to remember that there is “the resolution” in its July 10 form and the resolution in its post-April 2008 form. These are 2 very different animals.

    GR makes a good point. Not everyone who supports “the Resolution,” old or modified, feels that calling anyone a parasite is an ok thing to do. I think most of us would agree that was out of line and definitely not talk that belongs in public.

  16. Elena

    GR,
    The intent of the resolution is dramatically different without probable cause. THAT change was what many of us fought for. The reality is that 287 G was already in place, long before the resolution. No one said a word, not a peep. Now, having come full circle, after all the hate and division, guess what we have? 287 G in the jails. What was allowed/encouraged to fester is the hate and prejudice that we all know exists.

  17. Elena

    Mando,
    The report does NOT discuss whether citizens approve of the polic itself, it asks if they approve of the job the police are performing. do you admit the resolution dramatically changed with the deletion of probable cause?

  18. Gainesville Resident

    @Elena
    And I believe the media and others played up this hate and prejudice, just to get headlines and attention and support their positions, whatever they are. It also seems if the change to the current resolution made you so happy, how come I still see lots of arguments for canning the resolution in its current form?

    I still say a lot of this hate and prejudice is very exaggerated – in fact the whole thing with the loud music playing and the police confrontation is a perfect example of that. That was yet another attempt to stir up the idea that PWC is full of hate and prejudice. Fortunately, it didn’t succeed, thanks to the fact that the people made their story so unbelievable.

    Every time that parasites comment is trotted out – it makes me think again it’s just another example of attempts to try and show how racist and prejudiced PWC is. Probably one person said that. I assume it was said on the bvbl blog. If so, all the time on here there’s all these posts that say the blog has a very small audience. If so, it would follow that the hate and prejudice of those comments have a very small audience. You can’t have it both ways – to try and show bvbl is an example of the huge amount of hate and prejudice in PWC and at the same time claim it has a very small readership.

  19. Gainesville Resident

    Elena :
    Mando,
    The report does NOT discuss whether citizens approve of the polic itself, it asks if they approve of the job the police are performing. do you admit the resolution dramatically changed with the deletion of probable cause?

    The Inside Nova headline was misleading – I too at first thought that 80% number was those who approved of the resolution – but upon more careful reading it was those who approved of the way the police handled the resolution.

  20. Moon-howler

    @GR

    It also seems if the change to the current resolution made you so happy, how come I still see lots of arguments for canning the resolution in its current form?

    Who is saying can the resolution here? I have been unaware that those words have been used as a rallying cry here.

    Also as for the parasite remark (or dog remark, or mrsa, or tb et al)–prevailing themes against ‘illegals.’ Since we cannot exactly pinpoint who is illegal, it, by default, becomes a prevailing theme against all hispanics. You can see it here even.

    We stay vigilant because kittens grow into full-size cats. A small group of people can easily become a mob. That happened before in this county. Throw in a little fear rhetoric, a bad economy, and you have the perfect storm.

    It wasn’t the WHAT, it was the HOW that we tackle our problems in this county.

  21. @Gainesville Resident
    “I still say a lot of this hate and prejudice is very exaggerated”

    GR, you probably think that because you aren’t a hateful person. Unfortunately, the work in some of the community groups, the more you will understand how real the hatred is and where it stems from. Let’s not forget–we have active hate groups in this area. We have active hate groups that like HSM, FAIR and the major players in those groups. And we had HSM writing our county policy. It’s not just the media, though I will be the first to say I don’t trust the media not to pump up the volume, so to speak.

  22. Moon-howler

    I am not going to call anyone a hate group. Placing a label on a group makes it hard for me to discuss individuals and individual behavior.

    I have seen and heard a great deal of hateful speech around here and I believe that is a window into people’s feelings.

    Wanting to run people out of town is not an indication of peace on earth good will towards men, regardless of how justified we might feel that it is.

  23. @Moon-howler
    I was referring to the KKK, MH, which likes HSM.

  24. Moon-howler

    KKK likes HSM? huh? Explain please.

  25. @Posting As Pinko
    Way back when, the KKK complimented GL, HSM, BVBL etc. GL said he didn’t need the KKK. However, that the KKK likes you really says something, I think.

  26. Censored bybvbl

    Moon-howler, Eugene Robinson, addressing Sotomayor’s nomination,recently wrote a WaPo opinion piece that should be mandatory reading for a lot of white guys. It addresses how a lot of white men assume that there is a white male neutrality which functions out in the world. (Ha ha. The majority of citizens see it differently.)

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071302605.html

  27. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    @Posting As Pinko
    Here, dude, I found a new cause for you to fight for. This guy has been framed and he needs your help:

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-cat-downloads-porn-bn080709,0,6415792.story

  28. Lafayette

    SR,
    Damn those cats… Now, I know why I don’t like them. 😉
    This guy certainly gets the idiot of the week award.

  29. Elena

    The kkk did visit here during the contentious immigration debate, but I don’t recall any specific reference to them liking HSM.

  30. LOL!!! That’s pretty sick and pathetic, SR. And that guy is SCARY looking! Talk about Chester the Molester.

    Elena, I have to find the KKK reference. I was a long time ago.

  31. An Ordinary Joe

    I think that KKK said that they wanted to help on the immigration issue but Letiecq turned them down flat.

    I think your memory was a bit off, Posting.

    http://www.wusa9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62489

  32. Moon-howler

    Joe, I had not seen that article before and it was very disturbing. I didn’t realize Matt Brooks had been leafleted by those pigs. He is one of the most decent gentlemen I know.

    Letiecq just pointed a finger at someone else. Do you think that was appropriate? I don’t approve of that reference and it made him sound rather foolish.

  33. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    The cat did it. Man, I’m STILL laughing!

  34. Here’s the flyer from the KKK: “The flier that was included with a small tabloid newspaper included the following: “Mexicans are not her to assimilate, they are here to form their own nation. And unless we get busy right NOW they will succeed!”

    Sounds like “the invasion” GL and Duecaster love to talk about. And then GL compares the KKK to MWB and wonders why people throw that back at him and call HSM a hate group?

    Joe, I know GL disavowed the KKK. I just think it’s ironic that he blames MWB for the KKK coming to town (the KKK has been here for a good long time); meanwhile, the KKK endorses groups like HSM because their “invasion” rhetoric is similar and the KKK knows darn well there are hardcore racists in groups like HSM (not ALL members, mind you….don’t flip out here).

    Here’s what it comes down to: if the KKK APPROVES of you and your message, there MIGHT be a problem there, IMHO. You don’t Moon Howler getting love letters from men in sheets, do you?

  35. @Posting As Pinko
    That is, you don’t SEE Moon Howler getting love letters from men in sheets, do you?

  36. hello

    Hi Censored… you said “should be mandatory reading for a lot of white guys.”

    I’m a white guy so I read it… in it Mr. Robinson states “Denying the fact of identity makes us vulnerable to its most pernicious effects. This seems self-evident. I don’t see how a political party that refuses to accept this basic principle of diversity can hope to prosper, given that soon there will be no racial or ethnic majority in this country.”

    Just curious, since Caucasian males will soon be in the minority will there still be affirmative action?

  37. Lafayette

    @Moon-howler
    Not “our” Matt Brooks. Matt Brooks is indeed one of the MOST decent men a person could ever hope to meet. I had no idea he was one of the folks that got this sh!t shoved in their mail boxes.

  38. hello

    LOL Pinko “Mexicans are not her to assimilate”

    “not HER to assimilate”… Do they write how they talk?

  39. @hello
    LOL! Maybe. Luckily, I’ve never met a KKK’er up close and personal.

  40. @hello
    I Caucasion males become a minority, does that mean females will as well? Actually, shouldn’t it be the other way around since there are more Caucasion women than men?

  41. hello

    Great question Pinko, I would assume so, Caucasian males will soon benefit from affirmative action… I’m just happy that since my wife is 1/2 Asian my 100 day old son can be “Asian”. Or, when the demographics change and affirmative action favors ‘Caucasians’ he can be ‘Caucasian’. The future is bright for him!

  42. Moon-howler

    Yes, Lafayette, our Matt Brooks.

    Pinko, I have met the imperial wizard up close and personal. He scared the hell out of me because of his clothes and I bumped right into him coming off an escalator. He wasn’t unpleasant…to me. I was a little white girl though.

    As for the love letters from men in white sheets???? Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it? 😉

    Hello, soon your son can declare himself ‘bi-racial’ even. Except he wouldn’t be, come to think of it. I guess he would be quad-racial?

  43. hello

    Quad-racial? your right, wife is Korean/Polish, I’m Italian/Irish… Ah, who cares Moon… he will be “Asian” until he no longer benefits from it. I can then change his ethnicity to Caucasian when that benefits him. However, I have a feeling that when Caucasian becomes the minority it will won’t be a protected class.

    I have heard people saying that they want to get rid of affirmative action, that it no longer applies. No me, no sir, it’s here and I pray that we never get rid of it. It’s no use to me, but my children will benefit from it. I love affirmative action and EEO protected jobs and positions! Ill fight for them for my kids until I die.

  44. Censored bybvbl

    Hello, I believe Robinson’s point was that we all come from our own racial, ethnic, gender backgrounds. No one is immune. Because white males were the majority in government, business, religion, and higher education many of them have assumed that their view is neutral and unaffected by their gender, race, ethnicity. It’s just as affected as everyone else’s. It can’t truthfully claim to be neutral.

  45. Hello, congrats on your baby!

    MH, if you literally bumped into a robed one now, would you run the other way?

  46. Moon-howler

    No. They are basically unimpowered blowhards. This was many years ago during the sit-ins in Atlanta, Georgia. I was a kid and rather ill informed about the entire desegregation scene going down. The klansmen were dressed in full silks actually, not sheets. I guess the silks were their ‘dress blues.’ It was weird. I was young and probably only knew of the klan from history books. I can’t remember if I really even knew the significance. At any rate, they had on silk hats also. Large ones. The Imperial Wizard talked to me because I had hopped off the escalator and almost fell over the dude.

    He explained what he was doing and asked me if I had crossed the picket line. (I had) He said that was ok because I was a kid and didn’t know any better. As I recall, looking back, there had been a white picket line encircling the building because the lunch counter must have integrated at the dept store where we were shopping. I think my friend and I had seen a break in the line and just bulldozed our way through.

    What I haven’t figured out is why my mother let me go downtown with a friend with all that going on. I don’t think Atlanta was one of the violent places though (like Birmingham). I just don’t remember.

    There you go Pinko. You made me go back many years in my mind. I can even see a picket line guy’s face in my mind’s eye. I think Poor Richard might have lived in the vicinity at around the same time. He is a far better historian than I am so let’s see if he fills in the gaps.

  47. Censored bybvbl

    M-h, I remember Rich’s in Atlanta having two sets of water fountains and racially segregated bathrooms as well. My father used to drive the 90 miles to Atlanta so my friends and I could attend Peter,Paul,and Mary concerts. That was probably the closest we came to the civil rights movement personally except an occasional trip to the local African American church that our minister arranged. (He finally became disgusted enough to retire and move back to North Carolina, which I’m not sure was any better.)It was a very separate but unequal time! My darkroom has many 1950s era negatives and B&Ws of the klan – even children in their dress silks. The names of the participants are on the back. Wonder how they feel about it now.)

  48. Elena

    Mazel Tov Hello!!!!!!!!!

  49. Moon-howler

    Censored, maybe they are still loud and proud? Amazing. I don’t recall the seperate water fountains. I feel confident they were there, I just don’t remember.

    Ever thought of scanning and posting some of those pics? How did you get access to them? (the people)

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