http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-12-15-0092.htm

Illegals at center of testy exchange
N.Va. county's ordinance under scrutiny during civil rights panel's hearing

Saturday, Dec 15, 2007

By KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
WOODBRIDGE -- Prince William County's tough new measures targeting illegal immigrants prompted a heated exchange at a federal civil rights panel's hearing yesterday.

Linda Chavez, chairwoman of the Virginia advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, charged that Prince William officials failed to gather enough facts before determining they had a problem with illegal immigrants and then enacting measures to restrict services and use police to identify undocumented residents.

"I was a little bit reminded of the childhood tale of 'Alice in Wonderland' and the Red Queen who, as I recall, said, 'Off with their heads, off with their heads.' Sentence first, verdict later," Chavez said.

"It seems that there was very little fact-finding prior to the board's consideration of these measures. . . . Was it the facts that were motivating you, or was it something else?" she asked.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of Supervisors, responded first by alluding to Chavez's past -- she withdrew her nomination for secretary of labor for President Bush in 2001 after acknowledging she took in an illegal immigrant from Guatemala and gave the woman money and a room in her house. Chavez denied the woman was paid for providing household help.

"You've got a very clear past and an agenda here," Stewart said.

He went on to say that Prince William residents saw a problem existed. "The community identified the issue in the hospitals, in the hospital emergency rooms . . . on the streets in terms of crime . . . in the neighborhoods in housing overcrowding," he said.

"So, in other words, we have anecdotal evidence," Chavez interjected during the sharp, seven-minute exchange.

Stewart said county officials did study the issue and determined, among other things, that one-third of gang members in Northern Virginia are illegal immigrants and that 21 percent of local jail inmates are in the country illegally. He said Prince William supervisors were primarily concerned about crime: "The fundamental purpose of the [measures] is to remove the bad guys," he said.

Chavez said after the nearly four-hour hearing that the subcommittee plans to compile a preliminary report and could hold further hearings before issuing a report. That final report would be forwarded to the federal civil-rights commission, which makes recommendations to Congress and the president, she said.

The subcommittee is focused on Prince William, although several other Virginia localities have taken lesser steps to curb illegal immigration or are studying the issue.

Yesterday's hearing drew about 50 people to the county's administration building, far fewer than the hundreds who turned out at the same place when the county's then-proposed measures were debated and voted upon.

Eric Byler, a Prince William resident and documentary filmmaker, said yesterday he noticed broad stereotyping on both sides of the debate earlier this year. But he told the panel he was particularly disturbed by the assumption that county residents who speak Spanish, listen to Latino music, live in crowded houses or own a chicken are illegal immigrants.

"Their eyes tell them by the color of their skin, and their ears tell them by the way they speak," he said.

Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane, who has expressed concerns that the crackdown could hurt community-policing efforts, said his department plans to train officers in how to go about questioning residents.

"Racial profiling is not appropriate because it's against federal law, it's against our [department's] general orders and it's simply wrong," he said.

But Lisa Johnson-Firth, an immigration attorney, said racial profiling already is occurring. She said one of her law partners, from the northeastern African nation of Eritrea, was stopped by police three times in the past few months.

Johnson-Firth said one officer asked the fellow attorney why she was on "this side of town," while an officer during a subsequent stop asked if the woman had weapons or drugs and a third officer stopped the woman because her license plate was slightly bent.

Although a federal judge recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by opponents of the county's measures, Johnson-Firth said she and other lawyers are assembling plaintiffs for a new lawsuit challenging the actions.

John Stirrup, the Prince William supervisor who introduced the resolution that led to the county measures, told the panel that legal residents will not stand idly by and be overrun by illegal immigrants.

"The American people do not want to give away their country," he said.

County officials say they plan to implement the measures starting next month. The services to be restricted include business licensing, drug counseling, housing assistance and some help for the elderly.
Contact Kiran Krishnamurthy at (540) 371-4792 or kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com.