Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane laid out his plan for immigration enforcement on Tuesday, drawing praise from supervisors but raising concerns about the cost to county taxpayers.

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In July, the Board of County Supervisors had ordered Deane to come up with a way to crack down on illegal immigrants. That order raised a host of questions, from cost to racial profiling to day laborer sites.
On Tuesday, the chief sought to answer some of those questions by spelling out the department's plan of action.
The bottom line, Deane said, is that when an officer detains a person for suspected criminal activity, the officer will check the person's immigration status if there is probable cause to believe that the person is in the country illegally.
Probable cause, he said, means that "a reasonable and prudent person looking at all the facts would believe that this person is not in the country legally."
For example, he said later, if an officer stops a driver for speeding and the driver presents fake identification or tries to run, the officer may have probable cause to suspect that the driver is not in the country legally.
At that point, things get complicated.
Once probable cause is established, the officer would then run a check to see if the person is wanted by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
If the person turns out to be wanted by ICE, the officer may then be able to detain the person. Deane explained after the presentation that police can arrest anyone who is believed to be a high risk for flight. But just because a person is here illegally doesn't mean that he or she is high risk, he said.
Essentially, it is up to each officer whether to detain illegal immigrants and that means that every officer will need to be trained on how to determine probable cause without racial profiling and how to decide when to detain an illegal immigrant.
The new procedures won't take effect until January at the earliest in order to get everyone through training, Deane said.
These complications mainly affect minor infractions like traffic stops, where police normally just write a ticket and let the driver go. The issue is less complicated for serious crimes because all criminal suspects are arrested. In those cases, immigration issues can be sorted out at the jail.
The decision on whether to detain an illegal immigrant who has committed a minor infraction will be determined in part by the response from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Prince William police cannot deport immigrants. The local police can only turn the illegal immigrants over to ICE agents for deportation. But the number of immigrants ICE can handle is limited in part by the amount of jail space available in the region.
ICE does not have its own jail; rather, it borrows jail space from local jurisdictions in the area. So on any given day, the number of illegal immigrants ICE officers will accept is determined in part by the number of available beds in the area.
Privately, officers said it is unlikely that police will detain people unless they're wanted for crimes. Deane confirmed in a press conference after his presentation that it would be primarily "criminal aliens" who are selected for detention and deportation.
"Our focus needs to be on the worst first," he said. "There are limited resources."
And deportation procedures only begin after time has been served. If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, he or she will first serve their sentence for the crime. After the sentence has been completed, local officials may then turn the person over to ICE for deportation.Cost
Though the supervisors had unanimously approved the order in July, Tuesday's discussion broke down over cost.
According to Deane, the direct cost of implementing the immigration crackdown will be about $14 million over five years. Supervisors got in a brief squabble over whether that $3 million per year will prompt a tax increase.
"That's going to be about 15 cents on the tax rate that we have to go up to handle this," said Supervisor John Jenkins (D-Neabsco).
Chairman Corey Stewart (R-at large) called that figure a "gross overestimation" and said the extra $3 million per year "is not going to break the bank."
That started a short but heated argument, in part because Stewart has taken a "no-tax-increase" pledge but is also the key supporter of the immigration plan.
The disagreement doesn't have to be solved immediately. Over the summer, the board gave the police department an extra $1.3 million to hire the seven new employees they'll need to get the program under way. Supervisors will vote on Oct. 2 whether to approve the new hires, but the initial funding is already in place.
Still, the direct and indirect costs will add up and in a time of budget cuts and falling assessments, the cost will be a factor.
"We need to say to the public, 'Your taxes are going to be raised, not just because of this, but because assessments are down," said Supervisor Maureen Caddigan (R-Dumfries), who said she supports the plan but wants her constituents to understand that everything has a price.
The cost is part of the reason police will be selective about who they target, Deane said.
Every time an officer runs an immigration check, the officer is essentially off the street while the issue is resolved and the suspect is processed. That means more officers are needed to cover for those who are tied up with immigration issues.
Detention is also a factor because the county's Adult Detention Center is already crowded. Superintendent Skip Land said that on the day the planned 200-bed expansion opens, it will be full, even without immigration detainees.
Essentially, Deane said, everything will have to be prioritized.
"There's limited jail space," he said. "We either need to make more jail space or sort it based on risk to the community."

Concerns
But cost isn't Deane's primary concern. The chief told supervisors that his main concern is law enforcement and the problems that the immigration crackdown could cause with community relations.
Deane told supervisors that illegal immigrants are "ideal victims." They're not likely to report crimes, they tend to carry cash, often walk rather than drive and are often alone and in bad parts of town.
Two illegal immigrants were murdered last year, and the chief estimated that 40 percent of street robbery victims are Latinos.
A large percentage of those are illegal immigrants he said, and added that he believes only about half of these robberies are reported to police. Illegal immigrants are also often cheated of day labor wages, and those who are victims of domestic violence are unlikely to seek help.
On the other hand, he said, illegal immigrants also bring problems, such as overcrowded homes, gang violence and hit-and-run accidents.
The trick, he said, is to manage the problems and get rid of serious criminals while still maintaining the trust of the immigrant community at large.
The police will be working on outreach to get the word out that they will not be doing immigration sweeps, and they will not question victims or witnesses about their status.
In fact, Deane said later, if a man walks up to an officer and declares that he is an illegal immigrant, the officer does not have the legal authority to arrest him.
"We want to do what we can to reassure them," he said.



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