No racial profiling in county
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OUR OPINION
Published: June 7, 2008
In a press conference Tuesday, Prince William County police chief Charlie T. Deane clarified the county’s immigration policy.
He stated that no matter the skin color or ethnic background of a person, if someone is arrested, the immigration status will be checked.
Now, we are happy to hear that there will be no racial profiling in Prince William County.
We certainly do not want the county or its police department opened up to lawsuits or allegations of racism.
However, we are curious as to how much it will cost the county in manpower, money and time that could be better spent protecting the community, to check the immigration status of every single person
arrested. That is a tall order.
We think that the police department is doing the right thing considering the directive passed down to it by the county government. It is the Board of County Supervisors we blame for this silliness.
In an effort to take on the responsibilities of the federal government, Prince William County is directing an inordinant amount of time and attention toward the issue of illegal immigration.
And of course, the sum result is that no matter how many people we catch here illegally, we still have to rely on the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take them out of here.
True, the department has been doing a better job since the recent debacle where it was not living up to its end of the bargain with the county, but seriously, can officials there accommodate us as the
number of illegal immigrants caught in our community increases?
And with ICE training in the jail, isn’t it redundant to have the police check the immigration status of everybody who is arrested?
Not everybody who is arrested goes to jail, this is true. But ICE already has its hands full with those illegal immigrants in the jail. Adding to their number does not mean we will reduce the number of illegal
immigrants in our community. We will simply be moving them from the streets to our already overcrowded jail or farming them out to other jails at an extra cost to our taxpayers.
Prince William County is not equipped to solve our illegal immigrant problem. It is not the federal government and does not have the resources necessary. Increasing enforcement on our end will not be
sufficient unless there is a comparable increase on the federal government’s end.
And in the meantime, we are making it a habit of asking people for their papers. Our community is becoming scarier everyday.
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Vic ) on June 09, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The real waste of money is grounded in the fact that the county is continuing its illegal alien catch and release program. Last week, your paper reported that less than half of the illegal aliens questioned and confirmed by police are being processed for deportation—when it should be closer to all of them. It’s a real waste of money to catch these criminals—then release them—only to have catch them again.
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Posted by ( LRMan ) on June 09, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Barnum,
Some states, like MD, have secumbed to the open borders crowd and issue state DL’s to illegal aliens. So, it is perfectly reasonable that an illegal aliend would get a MD DL and present it in VA. So accepting a DL as proof of citizenship simply is not acceptable. That’s why we need a national ID card.
I like your monthly rotation idea. I vote for not enforcing speeding in Aug. That way, I can get to my vaction in the NC’s Outer Banks faster without being worried of being pulled over and getting a speeding ticket. Another winner would be to halt enforcement of shoplifting in Dec. It sure would help my Christmas shopping.
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Posted by ( LRMan ) on June 09, 2008 at 11:34 am
So, Willow703, if an illegal alien is arrested for say, robbery for example, you don’t want to use his detention as an oppurtuntiy to verify his citizenship? If a robber is arrested for robbery, should we refrain from asking if he is illegally concealing a weapon, after all, it has no bearing on the crime for which he was originally detained.
Face it, nothing will make you happy until we all agree to simply ignore immigration laws. Of course this course of action begs the question, if we are going to make a concience decision to ignore immigration laws that Congress has passed, and the President has signed, then what other laws do you think we should ignore? Speeding seems pretty unpopular. Perhaps we should order our police to stop enforcing those. Then of course, if we are ignoring them, why not just have Congress and the President recind the laws?
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Posted by ( LRMan ) on June 09, 2008 at 11:17 am
You said, “...we are curious as to how much it will cost the county in manpower, money and time that could be better spent protecting the community, to check the immigration status of every single person
arrested.“ Well I, and any reasonable person, would assert that checking immigration status of detainees IS protecting the community.
You then said “Prince William County is not equipped to solve our illegal immigrant problem. It is not the federal government and does not have the resources necessary. Increasing enforcement on our end will not be
sufficient unless there is a comparable increase on the federal government’s end.“ We actually do have the resources in PWC and just because our efforts alone won’t solve the problem does not support the idea that would should do nothing.
If I provided 10% of my income in food to local foodbanks, it would not solve hunger in the world. Since my effort won’t solve the problem, should I refrain?
Your logic is flawed because your basic premise is flawed. You don’t believe we should have laws in the US that regulate our international borders.
That’s the nub of everything. Some people simply believe there should not be a control on our borders; the so called “open borders crowd”. Until that group is successful at lobbying Congress to eliminate international border control laws altogether, their resultant arguments are simply dead on arrival.
Face it, your dislike of the “pro immigration law” position negates all your resultant complaints. You don’t like the laws. You can’t pick and choose which laws we’ll enforce, like, or follow; that’s anarchy. You are an anarchist. You either have to follow the law, change it, or suffer the penalty. Those are the only choices. You can’t advocate that we not enforce existing laws and just expect the rest of America to just say, “oh, OK.“
Let’s say I had a problem with a law, like speeding. Perhaps I held the belief that speeding laws are unfairly restrictive of our freedom to drive how we want. Then I go around driving 90 mph everywhere. Then, when someone calls me on it, I complain that the speeding law is being enforced citing fairness. It’s simply illogical.
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Posted by ( barnun ) on June 09, 2008 at 8:46 am
I had always thought it was required to ask for ID when someone is arrested or even stopped by the police, such as a traffic ticket. If that person has a drivers license, their immigration status is already verified. Yes, our jails and prisons are overcrowded. Which laws should be choose to ignore to resolve this issue ? Maybe we could rotate months to be fair to all the law breakers. We could have a month to ignore child molestors, a month to ignore dui’s, a month to ignore tax evasion and embezzlement charges, a month for rapists etc. This way we could ignore the laws in a way that would be fair to all law breakers. Ignoring the laws for just one group is a form a racial profiling after all.
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on June 08, 2008 at 2:56 pm
One might rightfully wonder about the cost in time & money, especially if those arrested refuse to answer a question which might have no bearing on the crime for which they are arrested.
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Posted by ( hacenedb ) on June 08, 2008 at 8:47 am
This is an excellent point of view. We, the citizens of PWC have been calmly saying the same thing all along. But one has to elect leaders to lead not elect supervisors who are mere followers, lacking any sense of vision when it comes to immigration. May be the community will take another direction the next time around.As far as profiling is concerned, it will be highly difficult to implement the ‘one shoe fits it all policy’ in checking the immigration status. Some tried it before and failed miserably.It is at the level of the HSM type of organizations that racism find its breeding grounds. By passing the resolution, BOCS has lost credibility with many members of our community. Now, it has to work three times harder just to get us to the pre-resolution days. What a waste of time and tax-payers money!
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on June 08, 2008 at 6:38 am
We should congratulate BOCS Cory Stewart and his adviser Greg Leticq for putting our county in this position.
Our county has become known throughout the United States for adopting a racist program towards undocumented workers. Here in PWC we can’t stop people from entering our country illegally. Solving immigration issues is a Federal matter. We also can’t control laws passed by the state of Virginia, which have also made the impact of undocumented workers worse.
What we can do (could have already done) is address the local impact and real problems caused by the flood of undocumented workers which appear to be:
- Lots of people overcrowded into private homes and giving neighborhoods a “seedy” unsafe.
- People driving without driver’s licenses or insurance in unregistered and potentially unsafe vehicles
- People unfamiliar with our language and local culture
- Employers getting away with not paying fair wages or not withholding proper payroll taxes
- Certain commercial areas having a “seedy” look because of people hanging out looking for day labor work.
- Unexpected influx of children in our public schools not planned for in long-range population projections, and possibly needing special educational assistance also not planned for.
There’s probably a few more issues there. It would be wonderful to have some real leadership out of the BOCS.
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