Herndon’s Town Council voted this week to allow its police force to enter into an immigration enforcement program that would give local authorities a larger role in questioning and deporting illegal immigrants.
The town’s police already have the right to arrest illegal aliens suspected of breaking the law, but it depends on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to process and deport them. The agreement, which the Herndon council unanimously approved Tuesday evening, sets in motion a federal training program that gives some officers the authority to begin deportation proceedings locally.
The deportation itself would still remain in the hands of ICE.
Town officials have distinguished this proposal from a blanket roundup of illegal aliens by local police. Toussaint Summers, Herndon’s police chief, has said the police would reserve program for the “worst of the worst.”
The vote is the latest in the council’s overall crackdown on illegal immigrants in the western Fairfax County town, which has a large Hispanic population and was dragged into the national spotlight over its controversial day labor center. The town recently attempted to revamp the center by seeking a new operator that would check immigration status. No firms, however, offered to take up the job.
– William C. Flook
