3 years ago
PRINCE WILLIAM CO., Va. (WUSA) -- The Prince William County board that pushed through anti-immigration measures now hopes the issue drives supporters to the polls on Tuesday.
In at least one neighborhood, people are giving the board and its chairman a 'thumbs up.'
"They had a mini bonfire going with no one watching them," says Chris Pannell, a resident of Manassas who believes a now-vacant home in her Manassas neighborhood was a boarding house for illegal immigrants. About 10 adults and 8 children lived there full time, with single males coming and going and lots of cars parked outside, she says. She says the screen door was often left open, a sign that means room for rent.
"I do think we are a compassionate people, but it just got out of control," she says.
In the back of the home, debris litters a nine-foot deep water logged pit that used to be a swimming pool. The owners and renters are gone. Now the bank owns the neglected home.
And Chris isn't the only neighbor happy the evening beer parties have stopped here and at other homes now empty.
"People would urinate in the front yards, and we had several brawls," says Patty Mattes who lives across the street.
While both Patty and Chris acknowledge the housing loan crisis has helped get rid of undesirable neighbors, they believe the new measures cracking down on illegal immigrants are also putting pressure on illegals to leave.
Patty says Board Member John Stirrup, who drew up the measures, and current chairman Corey Stewart who helped push the measures through, have her vote.
Corey Stewart says it's a quality of life issue. He says he's heard from schools that numbers of possible illegal immigrant children are down, and one obstetrician at a local hospital says the number of births to families that say they can't pay has gone from 30 a month to 4 a month.
Today, Stewart received the in-person endorsement from Rep. Steve King (R) of Iowa who has pushed for a stronger border along the United States. Congressman King says Prince William's measures are already putting pressure on Congress to finally do something.
But the Democratic candidate for Prince William County Chairman, Sharon Pandak, says the measures are ineffective and are tearing the community apart. The measures include denying some services to undocumented immigrants and training the police to check people for immigration/citizenship status during traffic stops.
Pandak says nothing in the measures does anything about the root of the problem: employees who hire illegal immigrants.
Pandak says her plan to help neighborhoods would engage Prince William's large legal immigrant community to help the various cultures get along.
You can watch full-interviews with Sharon Pandak and Corey Stewart along with most other candidates in Northern Virginia on WUSA9.com's Virginia Voter's Guide. Just click on the link below.
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