Hispanics claim to be target of Virginia anti-immigrant resolution

Legislators in Prince William County, Virginia passed a strict anti-immigrant resolution which has been viewed by critics as targeting people of Hispanic background. “The ordinance has shown a complete failure of understanding an immigrant community as diverse as the open in Prince William County” said a political analyst for the National Council of la Raza. One resident expressed a more personal worry:

"How are we supposed to survive here?" asked Gregorio Calderón, a legal U.S. resident from El Salvador who said he worries that police will harass him because of his ethnicity. "They're going to pull me over just for being Hispanic."

The resolution will attempt to deny government services to illegal immigrants including emergency medical care and access to public libraries though it is a slightly weaker version of the original proposal. (That would’ve forced officers verify the immigration status of every person they stopped and requested Homeland Security to deputize cops so they can enforce federal immigration laws). Yet criticism of the stripped-down version of the ordinance came from the county’s police chief who deemed the measure as stigmatizing the area “as a racist community intent on driving out a single population.”

Prince William County joins several other communities in states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey that have passed anti-immigrant resolutions.

Source (Spanish)- El Diario/La Prensa

Sources (English)- Washington Post, USA TODAY – On Deadline, Forbes, Newark Star-Ledger

Image- USA TODAY – On Deadline (Large crowds were drawn to yesterday’s hearing in PrinceWilliam County, Virginia)