Immigration foes forget about loving neighbors

By DAVID YOUNT
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The late Fred Rogers used to introduce his daily TV show for children by singing, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

Were he still among the living, Mr. Rogers would be dismayed at the lack of neighborliness in Prince William County, Va., where my wife and I happen to live.

Recently our county commissioners voted unanimously to root out illegal immigrants by depriving them of county services and business licenses, and reporting them to federal officials for deportation from the United States.

Before the commissioners' vote, some 1,200 residents packed the county's government complex, spilling out into the streets. As many as 360 of them signed up in roughly equal numbers to testify for or against the proposal during a marathon 12-hour meeting. The atmosphere was charged; the crowds were raucous.

Prince William is the second-largest county in Virginia, home to working-class, two-earner families who find it more affordable than suburbs closer to Washington, D.C. New housing in the county favors modest townhouses that can accommodate couples with several children. Prince William, which prides itself on good schools, health facilities, and public services, has been a magnet for recent immigrants, notably Hispanics. With property values down by 14 percent, commissioners who fear the need to reduce public services are targeting illegal immigrants for placing a burden on taxpaying citizens.

In fact, there is not much that the county crackdown will accomplish besides aggravating existing tensions. Federal law prohibits excluding illegal immigrants from schools and medical care. Illegals do not receive welfare or food stamps. So the county proposes withholding other services, for example, substance abuse counseling, drug trafficking prevention programs, recreation and day care for seniors, and business licenses.

Marc Fisher, writing in The Washington Post, believes that the crackdown will drive the illegals even further underground. The county's police chief predicts that illegals will be reluctant to report on crimes for fear that any innocent contact with the police will increase the possibility of their being deported.

If this uproar smacks of vigilante justice, the blame must be laid squarely on Congress and the president, who refuse to establish a national policy on immigration. It is our states and localities that suffer from Washington's inaction.

America itself was colonized by illegal aliens who stole land from the native Americans. The Good Samaritan whom Jesus praised was not one of God's chosen people, but a foreigner they despised, who nevertheless came to the assistance of a Jew who had been robbed and beaten, while the Israelites ignored the victim's needs.

In our nation's past, immigrants clustered in ethnic city neighborhoods until they were assimilated via the vaunted American "melting pot." Today, many immigrants settle from the outset in non-ethnic communities such as Prince William. Like Mr. Rogers, they are asking us, in effect, "Won't you be my neighbor?"

(David Yount's 10th book is How the Quakers Invented America (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com)

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