For Many Immigrants, No Answers

"When you have houses with 16 people crammed into them, the quality of life suffers tremendously," said Greg Letiecq, an activist affiliated with a group called Help Save Manassas. "It's fine to have Hispanic communities and homeowners, but how many illegals are they harboring?" Because of "permissive" laws and employment practices, he added, "we have made it very easy for illegal aliens to live here."

A variety of Hispanic residents, including established business owners, said they felt comfortable in Manassas and had not experienced any personal hostility. There have been no clashes over day laborers lounging on corners and no signs of Hispanic gang activity, except one recent discovery of graffiti on a residential fence.

But because of a recent economic slump, the residents said, more immigrants are losing steady jobs and going into mortgage foreclosure. Some also described a growing sense of insecurity in the Hispanic community, especially anxiety about being deported. Fewer and fewer immigrants are going out to eat at night, even in a town where every strip mall has at least one Salvadoran or Mexican restaurant.

"We are not a minority here anymore, or at least we are a large one. I pay taxes, and I have no problems with anyone. But some people are afraid," said Dimas Lizano, 45, a Salvadoran-born man who owns a small paving company. He mentioned a recent early morning incident in which a truck full of Hispanic workers sideswiped a car. The police came quickly, he said, "but the immigration van came even faster."

As the issue of illegal immigrants becomes more pronounced in Manassas, pro-immigrant organizations have begun taking actions, such as holding the free legal aid clinic, to prevent it from erupting into the kind of protracted, ugly political dispute that has bitterly divided immigrants from longtime residents in Herndon.

Officials of Ayuda Inc., which is based in the District, said they held the Manassas clinic in hope of helping families resolve as many immigration problems as possible, including visa processing, delayed residency applications, family reunification and travel complications and relief from unscrupulous lawyers or notaries who had misled them about pending cases.

Still, the officials acknowledged, there were many people they could not help, because either they or their relatives were in the United States illegally. A number of couples came in with hopeful faces and left crestfallen after brief interviews. Under current law, they were told, they had no chance of resolving their immigration problems.

The mother from Mexico, who wanted to bring her son for a visit, had no legal standing to request his visa. The grandmother from El Salvador could not get permission to travel. The man from Guatemala could do nothing to help his brother, who lost his chance at residency because he violated immigration rules by flying home to visit his sick mother.

"Everyone here has someone who is legal and someone who is not," said Erica Gomez, 34, a Bolivian woman married to a Salvadoran man. Under separate provisions of immigration law, both have the right to live here, but both have legal limits on the right to work and travel abroad. "This is our daily life, full of frustration and worry," she said. "All we can do is wait."