Manassas council to hear police ICE request
By Kipp Hanley

Published: March 29, 2008

Manassas City Councilman Marc Aveni likes to think that the council will put some money where its collective mouth is when it comes to the city's involvement in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program.


On Monday, the council will hear the police department's supplemental request for three new positions for fiscal 2009. Chief John J. Skinner hopes to hire and train three police officers to assist in the arrest and eventual deportation of criminal illegal aliens.


Former councilman Jackson Miller, a Prince William police officer and the 50th District representative in the House of Delegates, first pushed the initiative in 2006. The council unanimously approved entering into an agreement with the feds, and after months of negotiations and tweaking, the Secretary of Homeland Security signed the city's memorandum of agreement with ICE last week.


"This is an important initiative for


the city," Aveni said. "This initiative,


without funding, is nothing."


Currently, the department has one ICE-trained officer with the goal of eventually having seven with this capability. According to Skinner, because of staffing restraints, training these selected officers all at once is not possible.


Instead, the training will most likely be for one or two individuals at a time over the course of this year. Skinner said the lone person trained is bringing other officers up to speed internally on "understanding what their authority is, once the officers are cross-trained as ICE agents."


The three remaining positions Skinner would like to see see trained would be current detectives that work in the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force and the Prince William County/Manassas City/ Manassas Park Vice & Narcotics Task Force.


Skinner called the approval of the new positions realistic. Aveni said there's a limited amount of money every budget season and he would like to see the numbers crunched before he comes to any conclusion on how much the city can afford to spend on the program.


"In my mind we need police for ICE and you need money to fund it," Aveni said. "Beyond that, I don't know how it will shake out."


The city manager's 2009 budget didn't include any new police positions. However, two patrol officers and one detective were approved and hired through last year's budget process—positions unrelated to the 287(g) program.


Councilman Jonathan Way also strongly supports the request and hopes the rest of the council will do the same.


"We want to maintain fiscal responsibility but not at the expense of public safety," Way said. "That's not in the cards and that's not going to happen."


Skinner said the police has also had preliminary discussions with ICE on having another facility equipped with the appropriate identification workstations necessary for the 287(g) program. The only facility in the Manassas area that has that capability is the Prince William-Manassas Regional jail


The feds initially told the city that a separate facility with this technology would not be possible.

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