My Mom sent me this article from the Washington Post about the migration of illegal immigrants from the Prince William County, VA school system (the system my kids were in until we moved to Winston-Salem) to the school systems in Fairfax, VA and Arlington, VA.  Last year Prince William County enacted some rules to deny services to illegal immigrants and the result is that many have moved to neighboring counties.

Illegal immigration is obviously a hot-button issue for lots of people.  I find myself coming down in the middle between the open-borders crowd and the "put em all in a boxcar back to wherever they came" crowd.  The way I see it this country was built on immigration and although every immigrant group through the generations, be it the Irish, the Italians or the Asians has endured a level of vehement discrimination, they’ve injected a level of energy and purpose to our country that it’s hard to imagine America without.  So my problem isn’t immigration, it’s illegal immigration.

Now don’t jump to the conclusion that I think the illegal immigrants are bad or evil people.  I imagine they are doing what any number of us would do in their situation; seeking opportunity and a better life for them and their families.  I have to believe that if we somehow found a way to reform our immigration process we could do away with lots of the illegal immigration problems that we deal with.  However, until that bigger problem is solved we do have to deal with illegal immigration and if a community decides to do it by denying government services unless someone can prove legal status then so be it.

Unfortunately we get a lot of what I’d consider intellectually questionable verbiage from mouthpieces on both sides of the illegal immigration issue. The Post story has two quotes that typify to me the intellectual disconnect some of these folks suffer.  First there’s the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors:

"The resolution is clearly working," said Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.
"It is driving down the non-English-speaking portion of the schools and
saving us millions of dollars. They’re going to other jurisdictions and
costing them money."

Stewart called those jurisdictions "sanctuary" cities and counties,
saying illegal immigrants are welcome there. He added: "There is going
to be pressure to enact similar resolutions in those neighboring cities
and counties." Officials from those jurisdictions reject that
assertion.

I don’t dispute that the resolutions are working as some intended, but what’s with calling the other counties sanctuaries?  It makes it sound like they’re putting armed police on the borders to prevent the good folks at ICE from entering and doing their jobs.  Just plain silly.

Then there’s the representative from Mexicans Without Borders:

Immigration advocates also disputed Stewart’s claim that those leaving Prince William are primarily illegal immigrants.

"The majority of our families here were mixed-status families," said Nancy Lyall,
a volunteer with Mexicans Without Borders. "You’re forcing the legal
residents to leave the county as well. And, of course, many of the
children are legal as well, and they’re being forced to leave, too."

Well, duh.  If the parents are illegal and their kids were born here then I guess that gives you a mixed status family.  Note that the county isn’t denying children of illegal immigrants access to the school system, rather they are denying other services to illegal immigrants themselves and instituting background checks for legal status of crime suspects.  Also note that the people are migrating to nearby counties with higher costs of living, yet it appears they feel they need to in order to continue getting county services that cost those counties’ legal taxpayers.  I’m not sure Ms. Lyall is going to win many people over, including those with moderate views, with her arguments.

Before you accuse me of being a heartless bastard let me reiterate that I’m all for a very liberal immigration policy.  I’d like to embrace more immigration, the establishment of a highly proactive system for integrating our new neighbors into our society, and a welcome injection of energy and creativity into our society.  And if someone’s here illegally and they get deathly ill, then by all means give them medical treatment (by law they must get such treatment, even in Prince William) and then a nice comfortable ride home and hopefully they can find a legal way to get back here. 

And to make sure I’m REALLY clear here, I’m not just talking about liberalizing immigration programs for Mexico and Central America.  What about all the displaced people in Iraq who would actually like to emigrate here, although after what we’ve done to their homeland I can’t imagine why?  I think we should embrace them just as we did the Cambodian boat people thirty years ago after the end of the Vietnam War. 

Unfortunately because of the jackasses we’ve put in charge on the Federal level we’ll probably not see workable immigration reform and it will be left to local communities to deal with it themselves, and you’ll begin to see more and more situations like you see in Northern Virginia.  That’s a true shame.