Observer Online | Viewpoints

Posted March 28, 2008

Same Ol' Tune for Town Council

People have asked me recently what I think the issues are for this May's Town Council election, and I have told them that immigration-related issues, which consumed the last election, seem to be subsiding this year.

The Herndon Official Workers Center, which was a politically polarizing focal point, has come and gone. There is no official day labor site in the town anymore. The ordinances that supported the center have been deemed unconstitutional. And there is no effort, neither is there likely to be for the foreseeable future, to try to piece the strategy back together again. Those days are gone.

The town has gotten a hand on its overcrowding problem, thanks in large part to increased staffing and funding provided by the current council and the previous one, and recent statistics show that complaints have fallen. The overcrowding situation seems to be improving.

The Herndon Police have been operating under the federal 287(g) program, which authorizes local officers to perform some federal immigration functions, for about eight months now and the world has not ended. Yes, the town is still paying its officers to do the federal government's job without any compensation from the federal government. However, a report at the end of 2007 found that 29 people had been jailed using the 287(g) powers.

But this week the Town Council continued to be distracted by immigration issues by endorsing the mission statement and goals of a small group of local governments called the Coalition on Illegal Aliens. This is a group of government officials that have joined at the initiation of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors, and with much support from the Town of Herndon, to "minimize the impact of illegal aliens" on their communities. Herndon Mayor Steve DeBenedittis is chairman of the group, and Vice Mayor Dennis Husch has been instrumental in his support of the group.

It is odd that the Town Council would endorse such a coalition, when, as is pointed out by Herndon citizen Dianna Traub this week in her letter to the editor, there are other, well-established and more credible agencies that have been representing local governments on immigration-related issues for years.

The mission statement for the group is: "Promote and influence a unified strategy at the local, state, and federal level to minimize the impact of illegal aliens on local communities while understanding the positive contributions of immigrants."

Among the groups stated objectives are: "Identify the challenges created by the presence of illegal aliens." I think the town has already clearly had ample opportunity to fulfill this objective, as it relates to the Town of Herndon. After years of debate and action, the citizenry of Herndon and the leadership of Herndon understand the challenges we face.

Another objective is "Educate local governments of the challenges created by the presence of illegal aliens." I suspect that other than a few communities in Alaska, there are few communities in America that don't already appreciate the challenges created by illegal immigrants. We are all living with the same problem that the federal government has failed to address.

Rather than continue to push a single agenda item, perhaps it's time for the Town Council to stop focusing on immigration as the source of all the town's problems and move on to other important town business.

The town would be better served to rely upon the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties to carry the torch of immigration reform to the General Assembly and the U.S. Congress.

Indeed, the Town Council would have done well to embrace the perspective of the City of Falls Church, the City of Alexandria or Arlington County, in the Virginia Municipal League's recent survey of local governments' approach to issues of illegal immigration.

In response to that survey, the City of Alexandria referred to a resolution passed by the City Council which identifies immigration as a federal responsibility similar to patent law and commerce regulation, and specifies that the city will "foster an atmosphere of inclusiveness that respects the dignity and worth of every person without regard to race, color, sex, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, age, disability, sexual orientation, and familial status."

Ah, but it's too late for that in Herndon, isn't it?