Immigration Leads City's Concerns
Manassas to Seek Help From State on Issue

By Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 3, 2006

Immigration issues top Manassas's legislative wish list for 2007.

The city wants the 2007 Virginia General Assembly to compensate it for any costs related to a plan to train law enforcement officers to expedite federal immigration laws and is requesting more state aid to combat crowding in single-family houses.

The City Council will meet tomorrow with state representatives regarding the session.

The council recently passed a resolution that would allow Manassas to participate in a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that gives local law enforcement the power to initiate deportation proceedings for illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes or multiple misdemeanors.

The resolution recommends that staff members at the Adult Detention Center, which the city owns jointly with Prince William County, receive the training. But if the center's jail board and the Prince William Board of County Supervisors do not support the proposal, Manassas instead would send city police officers to the training, according to the resolution.

"I think we are being leaders, and I would like to think that is the confidence people place in us -- that we lead and not sit back and watch what everyone else does," City Council member Marc T. Aveni (R) said. "There is always a risk when you try something new. This is new."

Aveni said he fully expects Jackson H. Miller (R), a former council member who led the council's ICE training proposal in October, to assist Manassas at the state level in his new role as a state delegate.

The jail board is awaiting answers regarding the program's impact on corrections officers, such as how long the training will last, how the program would be set up and its cost, said Patrick J. Hurd, board chairman.

"At this point, it is accurate to say we have more questions than answers and are looking forward to getting those answers," Hurd said.

"The jail board hasn't made a decision. Our board hasn't made a decision," Prince William County spokeswoman Liz Bahrns said.

Training each police department for the federal program would be costly, would strain already thin forces and could harm the police's relationship with the community, Manassas Police Chief John J. Skinner said.

Skinner said he was more inclined to support a new state-funded task force, similar to the Northern Virginia Gang Task Force, that works with federal agents and has more than 300 ICE cases pending.

The City Council's second legislative priority relating to immigration is a request for state support to enforce zoning laws in single-family neighborhoods.

"It is about overcrowding," council member Andrew L. Harrover (R) said.

He said that the issue is related to health, safety and public welfare but that current codes and enforcement are not strict enough to have an effect. "We are looking for some acknowledgment from the state that a problem exists that just hasn't been dealt with at a state level," he said.

Although crowding is a big issue in Manassas and is often discussed at meetings, Harrover said, complaints about it have decreased over the past year.

Previous attempts to address crowding in the city have not been successful. The U.S. Department of Justice, for one, is investigating complaints by residents, civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that the city illegally targeted Hispanic families in the enforcement of zoning laws, such as with a short-lived anti-crowding ordinance passed last winter that sought to limit the number of extended family members who could share a dwelling.

Complaints are also pending against the city with the U.S. Department of Education from four Hispanic families who claim the Manassas public school system turned over student records to zoning inspectors without notifying the children's parents, a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

"In the absence of any federal or state action to mitigate illegal immigration, the state should underwrite the costs of local governments to do it. The brunt of the cost of illegal immigration, whether it is law enforcement or schools, falls very locally," City Manager Lawrence D. Hughes said.

"All we are saying in many of these priorities is: 'Here are ideas. Here are actions. Here are facts that we as local governments are trying to deal with. The state has the ability to assist with all of them, and here are some ways to assist,' " he said.