Thread: Immigration: Too much, too little or just right?

Immigration: Too much, too little or just right?
By Shannon Sollinger
10/26/2006

Alex Levay, Leesburg attorney and past president of the Hispanic Bar Association of Virginia, sees the legal side of the immigration debate every day.

The term "legal immigrant" covers a lot a ground, said Levay. There is a big difference between being undocumented and having documents pending, waiting word from immigration.


A visitor can be here legally but not have a Social Security number, Levay said. Under the latest rules from the state, he or she won't be able to get driver's license.

Some of the rules don't make sense, he said - making an immigrant return to his home country to make the application for documents, for instance.

"It costs a lot of money and it doesn't make sense. It's a huge bureaucratic morass that takes forever to get an application through."

Deal in reality, Levay recommended, not "some ideal situation where everybody has their paperwork and everybody has filled out their immigration paperwork and obtained a work permit."

And it's not just Hispanics. "There are Latinos, Asians, Europeans and Africans, and we have to figure out how we are going to deal with the situation, to regulate the situation."

Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) has asked the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office to join a growing number of local law enforcement agencies that get training from and cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

Under ICE's 287(g) program, Loudoun Sheriff Steve Simpson could send some or all of his deputies to a training facility in Georgia. They would go through the same four-week course that ICE officers take.

An ICE 287(g) graduate deputy could make an arrest in Loudoun and have quick access to immigration data if needed. The deputy could turn an arrestee over to ICE and free up space in the Adult Detention Center.

ICE could do the same thing, but it would take longer, according to advocates of the program.

The Sheriff's Office would pay for the software to run the immigration database, and pay its deputies salaries while they are away for training and not on the job at home.

Critics of the program, including Fairfax Sheriff Stan Berry, say they fear that making local officers immigration officers would drive the local Hispanic population, legal and illegal, underground, and cost the officers a valuable source of information.

It would also distance the Hispanics from legitimate access to law enforcement.

Smaller departments, like Purcellville's, simply don't have the manpower to spare.

Delgaudio proposed in an Oct. 17 meeting to send only the deputies who "process arrestees at the Adult Detention Center" for the training. That, he said, would assure "citizens they can deal with field deputies with no fear of arrest for suspected immigration violations on the basis of appearance or accent."

Simpson is investigating the costs and benefits of the 287(g) program, said Kraig Troxell at the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. He has been tasked to get back to Delgaudio's Government Services Committee by mid-November with a recommendation.

Troxell said Simpson has also been talking to other sheriffs in Northern Virginia about the possibility of a coordinated approach.

Joe Budzinski, a Sterling resident and spokesman for Help Save Loudoun, supported sending the deputies for ICE training. Help Save Loudoun is advertised as part of the Help Save Virginia Network, which advocates "illegal immigration is not just a federal problem."

Budzinski said he joined Help Save Loudoun after seeing the effects of immigration on his neighborhood. Friends have lost jobs in construction, he said, as wage levels have dropped because of the availability of cheap foreign labor. Help Save Loudoun will be sponsoring candidate forums leading up to the local elections in fall 2007, Budzinski added.

To one small town in Georgia, according to Associated Press reports, immigration enforcement can have unintended consequences.

"This Georgia community of about 1,000 people has become little more than a ghost town since Sept. 1 when federal agents began rounding up illegal immigrants," wrote AP reporter Russ Bynum.

And increased border enforcement in California left half of this year's pear crop unpicked and rotting on the trees. By some estimates, 90 percent of the state's farm workers are illegal. When the government fielded 6,000 troops along the border, the farm workers stayed home.

In Loudoun, suggestions for dealing with, or even acknowledging, an immigration problem, varies within the Hispanic community.

Guillermo Toruno, a successful business owner, came here from Nicaragua for a visit and was stranded by a revolution at home. He favors weeding out the undesirables. If an immigrant has been here five years, worked, paid taxes, and bought or rented a house, he's probably a good candidate to stay. If he hasn't, Guillermo would look at him with suspicion.

His wife, Brigitta, was born in the United States of legal immigrant parents. "I say let's welcome them with open arms. Immigration has gone through waves for hundreds of years in the U.S. There have been times when we've said, 'Come in,' other times, 'No.'"

What we have now, said Brigitta, is politicians reacting to some people overreacting to immigration. "It will gloss over at some point and go back to being open."

A high school student, without papers, said he wonders why everyone focuses on Hispanics when they talk about immigration. "There are people from Taiwan, from India, from everywhere. Why just Hispanic people? They have something against us, I don't know what it is."

Loudoun's Asian population nearly tripled to about 30,000 in the last five years, according to Census Bureau figures. The Hispanic population grew, but not as fast, from 10,000 to 20,000.

But the Hispanic student favors a law to weed out criminals from the masses who want to come into the country. Brigitta Toruno said all kinds of people have always come to this country, "the good and the bad. We haven't been overcome by the bad, the criminal, that will make the U.S. a terrible place. If he continues in that line of work, he'll be caught."

Sandra Lopez, Leesburg mother of two, homeowner and volunteer, is all for tightening up the borders. She came from Peru when she was 15.

"I know how desperate they are to come over, to make a new life," she said. "But there has to be a way to stop it. You can't have just everybody come in."

Perhaps a system of short-term residence and work permits would work, Lopez said. But when an Hispanic immigrant makes trouble, is associated with gangs and crime, "then they look at all Hispanic people the wrong way. 'You must be one of those gang people' if you look Hispanic."

The same people who patrol in front of the Herndon day laborer site to scare off employers and immigrants, said Levay, forget their roots. "Their ancestors came from Ireland, Germany, wherever. We're a nation of immigrants. It's what makes us strong."

One thing everyone agreed on: Building a fence along the Mexican border is not going to work. Better to spend the billions of dollars creating jobs in Central and South America.

Contact the reporter at ssollinger@timespapers.com

©Times Community Newspapers 2006
http://www.timescommunity.com/site/t...d=506035&rfi=8

Loservillelabor Wrote:

Critics of the program, including Fairfax Sheriff Stan Berry, say they fear that making local officers immigration officers would drive the local Hispanic population, legal and illegal, underground, and cost the officers a valuable source of information.

This is one of the main problems. Critics are more concerned about the here/after than the NOW.
What part of illegal don`t they understand?

There`s no question that sacrifices will have to be made on both parts.
But I say, lets clear them out now and worry about making adjustments afterwards.

The longer we stall, the harder it will be for everyone.
If you want your children and grandchildren to have a future, changes need to be started now.
Our future is our children and grandchildren.