Latino Immigrants Stand Their Ground

Working with other rights groups, Firth's office has also printed pocket cards immigrants can carry that say they want to remain silent and to ask for an interpreter. She said that even illegal immigrants are entitled to full due process, including the rights to call a lawyer and request a search warrant for their homes.

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Yolanda Lemus, a legal immigrant who works for a real estate office in Manassas, spent several evenings last week answering a hotline that was set up after the Prince William board passed the original resolution against illegal immigrants in July. She said Spanish-speaking callers have asked whether it is safe to enter the county in a car, to enter a public park or to keep a doctor's appointment.

"People are mainly worried about chance encounters with the police," Lemus said. "We tell them not to panic, but to prepare for the worst." She also said that some English-speaking callers had said they wanted to volunteer to help immigrant groups but that others had made insulting and vulgar comments. "We call them nasty-grams, and we try to ignore them," she said.

Although the Prince William measures were aimed at deterring illegal immigration, many Latino families in the county, as in the general Washington region, are made up of legal and illegal immigrants, and the new policies have created a number of potential problems for them. Some families have split mortgages or businesses among legal and illegal members. Many illegal parents have U.S.-born children in county schools, and some kept their children home last week for fear of being discovered.

Norman Rodriguez, a legal immigrant from Guatemala who co-owns a restaurant in Manassas, said that he is part of a business association that is urging its members to stay but that some are either undocumented or have partners who are. "If they don't have papers, it will be much harder," he said. "Out of 100, only 10 will stay and fight."

Another large category of Latino residents in the area, including thousands of Central Americans, consists of those who entered the country illegally but have obtained temporary amnesty or permanent legal residency.

One of them is Paname¿o, who crossed the Rio Grande as a teenager with her mother and brothers in 1981, fleeing the civil war in El Salvador. She grew up in Arlington County, cleaned office bathrooms after school and earned a degree from Catholic University. Later, she became a U.S. citizen and went to work for a national organization that fights housing discrimination and predatory lending.

The longtime Prince William resident said that although she had encountered scrutiny when trying to vote in past county elections, she had felt at home until recently, when drivers began shouting insults in traffic after noticing her vanity license plate, an abbreviated version of "El Salvador."

On Oct. 17, she said, she was stunned by the cold shoulder the board of supervisors turned to the entreaties of Latino immigrants, who testified that the county policies would separate families and destroy their lives.

"I came here as an undocumented person. But I respect the democratic process, and I believe we all have the right to participate in it," she said, explaining why she decided to enter county politics at a time of intense division and hostility. "There is a feeding frenzy to blame immigrants for other problems. We pay mortgage taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes. A lot of us can't vote, but we all contribute, and we need a new voice."