The leaders of Virginia anti-illegal immigration groups that successfully lobbied Prince William and Loudoun counties’ elected officials to consider policies that discourage illegal immigrants from residing there are assisting similar fledgling organizations in other Virginia locales and in Maryland.
Leaders of three-year-old Help Save Herndon said they decided to create Help Save Virginia once they started receiving inquiries from residents of Virginia Beach, Henrico County, Vienna, Fairfax, Annandale, Culpepper and Roanoke.
“Other areas started to contact us once we were successful [in Herndon],” said Aubrey Stokes, co-founder of Help Save Herndon and Help Save Virginia. “We decided that it would be best to have a parent organization to provide a model to follow to create other organizations and to act like a point of coordination for all the groups.”
They also met with Montgomery County residents before the formation of Help Save Maryland.
“We were instrumental in getting them started,” Stokes said. “We were approached by people from Maryland who had seen the success of Help Save Herndon, and we met with them on several occasions.”
Brad Botwin, founder of Help Save Maryland, said Help Save Herndon leaders allowed him to copy the shell of their Web site so he could simply change the text for his organization.
Botwin said Virginia group leaders also will refer Montgomery County people who have contacted their organizations to his group.
Some people opposed to illegal immigration worry that tougher enforcement of immigration laws in Prince William and Loudoun counties will send undocumented workers to other Washington-area suburbs.
“If 100,000 illegal aliens move to Maryland, it may help to show those who support illegal aliens what the real impact of their policies are,” said Greg Letiecq, president of Help Save Manassas. “In the long term, it could help our legislative agenda in those areas quite a bit.”
