New Fear Leads Both Legal, Illegal Latinos To Leave Pr. William

"Even after they passed that July resolution, I had hope that [the supervisors] would change their minds," said Diaz, 37, who has legal status but worries about relatives who do not.

Now, she noted bitterly, "I'll be selling at a loss. But I don't care. I no longer have any affection for this place that treats us this way. I just want to get out."

Jose Ventura, a Salvadoran mason renting an apartment in Manassas, cites similar reasons for his decision to move not just his residence but also his business to Maryland.

Ventura, 38, who came to the United States seven years ago and then received the temporary protected status because of the earthquake in his homeland, smiled ruefully as he recalled the sense of possibility that suffused Prince William back then. "Oh, it was so great. There was so much work," he said.

He took two jobs to save enough to start a masonry company, then built it into a 35-person operation.

But a slowdown in the construction industry has forced Ventura to cut his workforce to 15 people. Meanwhile, his plan to buy a new house and offset some of the mortgage by renting some of the rooms backfired after county residents called for a crackdown on overcrowding. A few days ago, the bank foreclosed on the property, wiping out all $80,000 of his savings and leaving him $20,000 in debt.

The supervisors' unanimous approval of the anti-illegal immigration resolution struck Ventura as the last straw.

"I feel like when this county was growing, when they needed us, they welcomed us Latinos with open arms," he said. "But now that the county is all grown up and times are hard, it's totally turned its back on us. They are so ungrateful."