Officials around the Washington area say they will not follow Prince William’s and Loudoun’s efforts to discourage illegal immigrants from residing within their borders, despite anti-illegal immigrant groups’ concerns that the neighboring counties will become magnets for undocumented workers.
Both the Prince William and Loudoun County Boards of Supervisors recently voted to direct officials to study denying services to those in the country illegally. Representatives from Montgomery, Prince George’s and Arlington counties say they do not foresee their counties investigating similar policy changes.
“There are all sorts of new Americans who have settled in Montgomery County,” county spokesman Patrick Lacefield said. “We consider our diversity our strength, and we’re not going to be going down the road that perhaps Loudoun and Prince William are, in terms of ‘cracking down’ on immigrants.”
J. Walter Tejada, vice chairman of the Arlington County Board, said Arlington has no plans to change its policies, either.
“Arlington will continue to be a welcoming and inclusive county,” Tejada said. “What Loudoun and Prince William counties are doing is government-sanctioned xenophobia at its very ugliest.”
Officials from Fairfax County and Alexandria said only that their jurisdictions are not pursuing any action on illegal immigration at this time.
There is debate over whether illegal immigrants will leave Loudoun and Prince William counties.
“We track Spanish-language media programs, and there’s definitely talk of people saying they’re going to pick up and goelsewhere in the area,” said Greg Letiecq, president of Help Save Manassas.
“We’ve had the red carpet out for a while here in Montgomery County,” said Brad Botwin, director of HelpSaveMaryland.com. “Now that parts of Virginia are making it more uncomfortable for them, it will make us even more attractive to illegal aliens.”
Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA of Maryland, an immigrant-advocacy group, disagreed.
“They want to stay there,” he said, “where they already have houses and jobs to support them.”
