Fairfax County legally cannot deny many basic services to anyone — regardless of immigration status — but must prevent illegal immigrants from entering numerous other programs like food stamps and Medicaid, according to a report issued Monday by county staff.
The long-awaited report did not quantify the cost of providing government services to illegal immigrants, saying the information was either impossible or unnecessary to track down. It provided cost information for only one agency — the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, which spent $3.8 million to house 4,300 illegal immigrants in fiscal 2007.
Sully District Supervisor Michael Frey, who called for the report in the summer, said he was “not dissatisfied” by the results.
“People seem to think that we have the choice to say yes or no, and I wanted to get a good accounting of what we can and can’t deny,” he said. “I think at first blush, the answer is we’re following the law, we’re not spending a whole lot of taxpayer money [on illegal aliens].”
Services cannot be denied for agencies “with services related to the protection of life or safety” like the Fire and Rescue Department, Health Department and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, according to the document.
Public education cannot be denied either, according to the document, “since a local school board or governing body cannot deny them a public education” based on the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe. The county checks legal status for items including child care, food stamps, Medicaid-funded services, public housing and mortgages, the report said.
The county does not check legal status for services “necessary to support the outstanding quality of life in our community” such as public transit, roads, recreation centers and parks that are considered “universal access.”
What is impossible to know, county staff argued in their report, is the number of illegal immigrants who live in Fairfax, because “there are no reliable methodologies for creating such an estimate.”
