Prince William discovers that hounding immigrants doesn't come cheap.
Monday, October 8, 2007
PRINCE WILLIAM County's elected leaders have balked, for the moment, at implementing what would be one of the nation's more pernicious, unenforceable and legally dubious local crackdowns on illegal immigrants. Facing elections next month and political heat generated in no small part by their own rhetoric, they may still decide to go ahead. If they do, they will fan the flames of xenophobia in Prince William, squander the time and energy of police officers and other agencies' employees, and, we now know, burden county taxpayers with millions of dollars in spending that will achieve very little.
The policy the county is considering would do two main things: require police to coordinate more closely with federal authorities and conduct residency checks, even in the case of minor offenses, if they think a suspect might be in the country illegally; and deny some county services to illegal immigrants. The first instance is an invitation to blatant racial profiling by the police. The second is symbolism masquerading as policy.
The policy would leave it to police to determine who looks like an illegal immigrant and who looks legitimate. The inevitable result is that most police officers will be checking the status of Latino detainees more often than that of other suspects. Nearly a fifth of Prince William's residents are Latino -- most of them legal -- and the county's own Human Rights Commission has warned of the likelihood of racial profiling. What's more, the police action may not have much significant effect. Federal authorities have limited capacity to pick up and detain illegal immigrants who may be arrested in Prince William, particularly those detained for routine and minor offenses.
The plan to deny county services to illegal immigrants would also change little. For the most part, illegal immigrants are already denied access to many local services (excluding schools and emergency health care, which the courts have said are constitutionally mandated). A report prepared by county officials did recommend that illegal immigrants who are homeless, elderly or disabled be denied county assistance otherwise available to those groups. Aside from establishing Prince William's reputation as the most mean-spirited jurisdiction in America, it's hard to see what such a policy will achieve.
What is known is that these policies would not be cheap. County officials said it would cost $14.2 million to implement the police portion alone; denying services -- even if dozens of agencies and hundreds of bureaucrats could be trained and given usable guidelines to do so -- would cost even more. That has given some county board members sticker shock; they are considering whether the goal of harassing illegal immigrants justifies the hefty price tag. While they are mulling, they might also consider whether Prince William wants to be known as the nation's capital of intolerance.
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