Protest Styles Presented A Clash of Cultures, And One Decisively Won

Quiet Drowns Out Clamorous on Immigration Vote

Opponents of Prince William County's plan to target illegal immigrants tried marches, a boycott and a one-day strike. They organized protest caravans with hundreds of cars and turned out ever-larger crowds for county board meetings. When the plan went before supervisors for a final vote Oct. 16, scores of mostly Hispanic residents lined up to deliver tearful, urgent testimony during a 12-hour public comment period.

The result?

All the supervisors -- six Republicans and two Democrats -- voted to push ahead with the measures anyway.

The clash over illegal immigration in Prince William has placed several cultural differences on display in recent months. But perhaps none was as stark as the two competing political strategies that drove the debate and shaped public perception, one rooted in a tradition of street protests, the other largely invisible and electronic.

The strategies were deployed by the two organizations that channeled the fears and frustrations of divided county residents to emerge with the loudest voices: Help Save Manassas, which helped draft the county's anti-illegal immigrant policy and applied steady pressure for its adoption, and Mexicans Without Borders, an immigrant advocacy group that deemed the measures racist and took to the streets to say so.

The contest was a study in political contrasts. And in the end, the quiet, coordinated, Internet-savvy lobbying efforts of the pro-crackdown camp won over the chants of "¿S¿ se puede!" (Yes, we can!) and the mass mobilization techniques of their opponents.

Greg Letiecq, the conservative blogger and activist who is president of Help Save Manassas, said his rivals' strategy didn't translate to the suburban environs of Prince William.

"That's not the way politics is done in the United States," he said, calling the rallies and protests by his opponents "a political engagement model from Mexico."

Few members of Help Save Manassas were still present at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 17, when county supervisors voted to deny certain services to illegal immigrants and ramp up police enforcement of immigration laws. But the mostly Latino crowd that stayed until the end fell into hushed bewilderment when the outcome was announced. The arithmetic itself was a stunning blow: Despite a crowd of more than 1,000 opponents of the measures and hundreds of heartfelt pleas and desperate appeals, they didn't win a single vote.

The supervisors hadn't listened, they protested. It seemed as if officials' minds were already made up, they said.

And for the most part, they were right.

"No one changed our opinion with their testimony," said Supervisor John D. Jenkins (D-Neabsco). "I can be persuaded to have sympathy for people. I can't have sympathy for anyone who breaks the law."