Arizona law test case- 2007 Prince William County VA (hilarious result)

[underpants]

Prince William immigration law remains controversial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/06/AR2010050602382.html

Three years after the Prince William County board approved an ordinance similar to the controversial immigration legislation passed last month in Arizona, county residents are still arguing about whether it has achieved its intended effects. The results might offer some insight into how Arizona's new law will play out.

In Prince William, initial fears about racial profiling (law was modified the next year)have not been realized, according to preliminary results of a University of Virginia study, that is underway. But the study also said that it seems unlikely that the county's drop in violent crime was because of the policy, because illegal immigrants make up a small percentage of those arrested for such crimes.

Only 2.2 percent of people arrested in Prince William last year were illegal immigrants, according to police, and most of those committed misdemeanor crimes and traffic violations.

The study estimated that fewer than 5,000 immigrants, both legal and illegal, left the county between mid-2007 and the end of 2008. But many of those might have left anyway, said Audrey Singer, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, noting that the economic downturn, which started sooner for lower-wage workers, might have been a factor.

But opponents of the ordinance say it caused immigrants to flee the county, leaving neighborhoods dotted with vacant houses and sowing distrust of authorities without making much difference in crime.

"In Prince William we had people moving out, we had property values going down," said Nancy Lyall, legal coordinator for Mexicanos Sin Fronteras, an immigrant advocacy organization that opposed the Prince William ordinance. "The county paid $1 million to mow the lawns of people leaving the county." <---Gee I wonder who they hired to do that :think: