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Restaurant owner Doris Dominguez (left) used to have 28 employees, now, she has only one. (Photo: Jason Margolis)
Well before there was the immigration law in Arizona, there was Prince William County, Virginia. In 2007, The Northern Virginia county passed an ordinance that authorizes police to check the immigration status of people they detained. Three years later, The World’s Jason Margolis looks at the effects of the ordinance. Download MP3
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LISA MULLINS: Legislation in Arizona has been the focal point of a debate on immigration. The state’s controversial immigration law took effect a few months back. Though some of its most contentious provisions are on hold. But before Arizona, there was Prince William County. In 2007, the Northern Virginia county passed an ordinance that echoes Arizona’s law. It authorizes police to check the immigration status of anybody they detain. The World’s Jason Margolis looks at the impact of the Prince William County’s ordinance three years on.
JASON MARGOLIS: Prince William County used to be a rural, predominantly white community.
Back in the 1960s, it evolved into an outer suburb of Washington. Then in the past decade, the county became home to a rapidly growing Latino immigrant population.
GREG LETIQUE: And there was a significant amount of tension in the community, over, oh my God, I’m living next to a house next with 15 guys in it, and it’s a disaster.
MARGOLIS: That’s Greg Letique talking about residential over-crowding. He says there were also trash and noise problems, as well as Latino gangs, violence, drugs. So Letique created the group “Help Save Manassas.” That’s a city within the county. His group helped push through what became the nation’s toughest illegal immigration ordinance. Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors Corey Stewart says three years on, the results speak for themselves.
COREY STEWART: The housing values are way up, economic growth has returned. And frankly it’s a beacon on the hill.
MARGOLIS: Stewart points to a recent Money Magazine article that ranks Prince William County as among the top places in the nation for job growth. He says the immigration ordinance has also made his county a safer place.
STEWART: The overall crime is at a 15-year low. Violent crime rate is down about 29% since 2006. So we’re doing very well.
MARGOLIS: A spokesperson for the county police said it’s hard to say exactly why crime has fallen. And while Stewart says his county is safe and prospering, many Latinos here see things differently. I met several small business owners in the Woodbridge area, including Doris Dominguez. She owns the restaurant El Riconcito Latino. On a Friday during lunchtime, only three tables were filled.
SPEAKING SPANISH
MARGOLIS: She says three years ago, she had 28 employees. Now, she has one. And she does all the cooking. I also met Aracely Panameño. She says in the past few years, the county turned into a hostile place, even for citizens like her.
ARACELY PANAMENO: I’m talking about driving in my car with my daughter at a stoplight, and people yelling at me from their vehicles. At one instance, somebody came to my house and cut the brake lines to my vehicle. I have had hostile notes put on the windshield of my vehicle that says if El Salvador is so wonderful, why are you here sucking up all my taxes?
MARGOLIS: She says after the ordinance passed, a lot of Latinos simply packed up their bags and left the county. Throughout this neighborhood, it’s the same story. Foreclosed homes and shuttered or struggling Latino businesses.
STEPHEN FULLER: Go to a single shopping center in Woodbridge and you see half of it vacant.
MARGOLIS: Public policy professor Stephen Fuller at George Mason University believes these changes in Prince William County have more to do with broader economic trends than the immigration ordinance. Still, he says making immigrants feel unwelcome makes for bad economic policy. Fuller says immigrants fill low-wage jobs in construction and restaurants. And they help the local economy.
FULLER: These workers, they spend all of their money on retail goods, and most of those pay sales tax. They rent or they own and through either renting or owning, they pay their real estate taxes. They pay their income taxes. These workers pay their way. So we need them, and they’re not expensive to us, they’re not a fiscal cost.
MARGOLIS: The immigration ordinance has also left non-economic wounds that some groups are trying to heal. Dexter Fox heads the local organization “Unity in the Community.”
DEXTER FOX: We were looking for cheap labor, we invited cheap labor in, then we turned against undocumented immigrants who were supplying a lot of that labor. We still need to come to terms with the foreigner living among us.
MARGOLIS: Fox’s group holds community building exercises, such as film screenings followed by discussions. Fox says he became involved in the immigration debate after an undocumented Hispanic day laborer was murdered. He says he wanted to help his community heal and find a middle ground.
FOX: So, while I, neither am I for absolute 100% amnesty, I think it’s a very ticklish question where we need to look at it very carefully and make some really tough decisions about how we’re going to implement an immigration reform. Would I suggest voting for a resolution similar to the one here in Prince William County? I couldn’t do that because I think it was too harsh, I think it was too all encompassing, I think it was casting a very broad net.
MARGOLIS: But Greg Letiecq with the group “Help Save Manassas” says the county doesn’t need anymore healing.
LETIQUE: The healing process is for the law to be enforced, for illegal aliens to go back to where they belong. And the healing process is not that anyone who’s concerned about the rule of law has to surrender their political position and accept illegal immigrants.
MARGOLIS: A new organization headed by county supervisor Corey Stewart is pushing to make Prince William County’s immigration ordinance into state law. For The World, I’m Jason Margolis, Manassas, Virginia.
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