Thread: Prince William police arrest 89 illegals in month

Prince William police arrest 89 illegals in month
Arlo Wagner

Prince William County officials said yesterday that 89 illegal immigrants were arrested in the first month of a program that gave police officers federal training on how to deal with illegals.

Most of the arrests were for misdemeanor offenses, Police Chief Charlie T. Deane told the Board of County Supervisors, which in July voted in favor of the enforcement program.

The program allows police to make arrests on charges of county law violations, then hold suspects if the officers find “probable causeâ€

The Rule Of Law Resolution’s First Month
By Greg L | 2 April 2008 | Illegal Aliens, Crime, Prince William County | 4 Comments

The Washington Times is reporting that Prince William County Police arrested 89 illegal aliens for violations of a state or local law in the first month of the enforcement of the Rule of Law Resolution In addition to being subject to whatever penalties result from these violations, these illegal aliens are now also being held to account for the violation of federal immigration laws, whereas before the Rule of Law Resolution was adopted they would have been released despite the fact that their presence in the United States is unlawful. Meanwhile, there appears to be not a single credible complaint of improper behavior by the Police Department, nor a single instance of a legal resident or citizen being wrongfully targeted by these enforcement actions.

The Section 287(g) Portion of the county’s response is facing a few hurdles, however as the Adult Detention Center and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement respond to a greater than expected number of illegal aliens. The MJM reports that 1,200 inmates have been processed under the program so far, and that 632 of them have been subject to immigration detainers. The workload on jail staff performing this processing has required significant overtime, and at the same time ICE has been taking about four weeks to accept inmates with detainers which under the Memorandum of Understanding are supposed to be turned over within 48 hours.

As ICE and the county continue to find ways to smooth the process, the workload should begin to abate somewhat as illegal aliens continue to remove themselves from the county in an attempt to avoid the consequences of their unlawful actions. No one credibly believes that illegal aliens are just hanging around waiting to fall into the trap of the county’s enforcement efforts, and all indications are that the population of illegal aliens in Prince William County is rapidly diminishing. At some point this self-deportation activity is bound to show up in the arrest figures, and as the deportation process for illegal aliens improves, the number of new illegal aliens entering this pipeline should begin to diminish which would greatly help to reduce the challenges.

All this attests that the Rule of Law Resolution is clearly working. Almost half of all illegal aliens encountered are being detained, and I’m told that some of the illegal aliens who have been caught in this first month of enforcement are rather disturbing criminals. A significant number of these involve driving without a license, which has been a particular sore point in the community, but also caught in this net are much more serious offenders, absconders who have fled instead of reporting for court dates, and other troubling criminal illegal aliens. The word is clearly getting out from all of this activity that if you’re an illegal alien, Prince William County is not a place you want to be.

Despite some short-term challenges in the enforcement effort, the reports at this point show that the Rule of Law Resolution is achieving results beyond expectations. Criminal illegal aliens are being removed, rather than released back into our community. Illegal aliens encountered by police officers, instead of being given a free pass are actually being detained and turned over to ICE, or are at least being reported to ICE if insufficient reason exists to detain them. If the federal government can pick up the slack, and we can provide some additional resources at the jail to deal with the current workload, pretty soon there will be nothing but good news to report here.

I have to admit that I’m rather impressed.

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