Prince William County’s high-profile crackdown on illegal immigration has contributed to fewer overcrowding problems in the county but also has led to more vacancy issues, according to a new report.
Between 2005 and 2008, the number of complaints to the Neighborhood Services Division jumped from 3,341 to 7,126, and the number of violations rose from 3,226 to to 4,975.
“Although these figures indicate that residents were making a higher proportion of unfounded complaints, which represents their concern over the quality of life in their neighborhoods, they also represent actual changes in the neighborhoods during those years,” the report from the University of Virginia said.
Problems associated with overcrowding rose through 2006, then began to fall, the report said. Justified complaints for “parking on an unimproved surface” dropped 38 percent from 2006 to 2008, though there was a large drop before the illegal immigration measure was introduced in July 2007.
Conversely, the number of weed and tall grass violations — issues associated with vacant houses — jumped from 561 in 2006 to 1,128 in 2008, said the interim report on the county’s illegal immigration policy.
The data point to illegal immigrants leaving around the time the legislation was passed, though reasons for that are not clear. Tom Guterbock, director of U.Va.’s Center for Survey Research, estimated that several thousand illegals left when the policy was enacted.
“Although disentangling the effects of the economic recession and the policy prevents us from determining how much change was due to the policy and how much to the economy, we are not deterred from concluding that both contributed,” the report said.
Local businessman Carlos Castro said in the report that in the period leading up to passage of the resolution in 2007, some frightened Hispanics didn’t just leave the area — they left the entire country.
“I don’t have [any] scientific way of proving it, but Manassas is a ghost town when it comes to Latinos,” he said. “Also, in day-to-day contacts with my business, I knew of people who were moving out who were citizens. I told them not to move, but they said that some of their relatives would not come to visit them in [Prince William County].”
The Rev. Donald J. Planty Jr. of the Holy Family Catholic Church, however, is quoted as saying that “the vast majority of illegal immigrants have left simply for economic reasons.”
The final report, set to be released next year, will investigate potential cost savings based on the county providing fewer public services to illegal immigrants.
