VivirLatino

So You Thought Prince William's County Anti-Immigrant Stance Was a Good Idea Huh?

13:36 H | Topics: Education - Immigration - Virginia

Some of our readers praised local anti-immigrant measures, like the one Prince William County, Virgina passed, but to used a cliched phrase, what happens when those chickens come home to roost. More specifically, what happens when the impact of these policies impact you, the non-immigrant, the non-Latino, where it hurts, your wallet?

Hundreds of foreign-born families have pulled their children from Prince William County public schools and enrolled them in nearby Fairfax County, Arlington County and Alexandria since the start of the school year, imposing a new financial burden on those inner suburbs in a time of lean budgets.

Public school budgets are largely based on enrollment numbers and losing school children, regardless of where they or their parents were born takes dollars away from the entire school. But the in-state migration has also left other schools, where Prince William County refugees are fleeing to, scrambling to support the new influx.

"The combination of what's happening in Prince William and our own budget concerns increases anxiety across the system," said Deirdre Lavery, principal of Glasgow Middle School in the Alexandria section of Fairfax, where 14 students transferred from Prince William this school year.

But I'm pretty sure that the Prince William County team who put their immigrant hating heads together could care less about the impact on other neighboring communities. As long as the immigrants (brown people) are out of site, they can be out of mind, showing just how short sighted their thinking really is.

Related

• May Day At Union Square Video Crowd Clip (Friday, May 02 2008)
• Notes from the NYC Union Square May Day Pro-Immigrant Rally (Friday, May 02 2008)