HelpSaveLoudoun Candidates' Forum, Pt. 1

Here were the set-up remarks for the panel discussion, delivered by a local yahoo:

Zoning regulations and enforcement, rules regarding business licenses, and public safety are all within the purview of local and state governments - and these also happen to cover the areas where citizens are most likely to be negatively affected by the illegal alien population.

We believe firmly that fairness is a two-way street. Loudoun, in fact all of Northern Virginia, is and has been for many years a welcoming area to immigrants. Anyone who has lived in this area since about 1975 should be accustomed to living in a multicultural community.

But there is nothing at all wrong with insisting the community maintain certain rules, and when zoning rules are broken so that regular neighborhood houses are turned into boarding houses, and when business rules are broken so that some companies gain an unfair advantage through lower costs for labor, taxes, benefits and unenforced licensing requirements, there is nothing unfair about citizens who ask: "When did we decide to stop enforcing the rules we have had for years?"

Candidates for County Supervisor

Some of the advocates of illegal immigration make the case that it's cheap labor. I would maintain to you that it's not, that we're all paying the price one way or another: whether it's in the educational system, educating children whose parents don't pay taxes because they don't have valid taxpayer ID numbers and don't pay income taxes; whether it's free medical care; whether it's in transportation ... something like half to two-thirds of illegal immigrants have no car insurance. So it's not cheap labor. We're all paying the price whether it's in higher taxes, higher insurance rates for our cars, higher accident rates. There's a price to be paid.

There are three things that counties in the U.S. have done: I know that Beaufort County down in South Carolina has done some remarkable things at the county level to try to stem the tide of illegal immigration, and those are things we can do here in Loudoun as well.

One is to bar local government contracts with employers who hire illegal aliens. This has been a problem for some time. I've heard that county government building projects involved companies employing illegal aliens. I think we need to do a little more research into seeing who exactly is winning our contracts.

Secondly, preventing landlords from renting to illegal aliens and fining them for doing so. I would say that in the Balls Bluff area, I visited probably 70 or 80 homes last weekend, and I'd say 10% or 15% of those had three or four families living in them at the same time.

The last thing is prohibit business licenses for companies that hire illegal aliens. If we really enforce this, as I would intend to do, that would have a serious impact on the problems brought by illegal immigration.

I do want to say I will be working closely with whoever our next Sheriff will be ... in solving the illegal immigration problem here. If I hear, for example, that we have large numbers of illegal workers at a particular site, I will work closely with the Sheriff's Office and federal officials to make sure this problem is addressed. Together, I think we can help save Loudoun.

Frankly, some of what's going on I've heard referred to as modern day slavery. .. We're up against a lot of obstacles: One of those are the courts, that are making decisions every day giving benefits to illegal aliens. ... The other one is politics, because politicians in both parties are opportunistic. They either see these folks that are being exploited as cheap labor or they see them as easy votes. The costs of illegal immigration are huge - many of them are immeasurable. They're taxing our health care system. I was reading that in California alone there were 78 hospitals that closed because they couldn't take care of the uninsured, and many if not most of them were people who are here illegally. Our social welfare system: Many states give benefits to people who are not citizens.

Many of these people are being covered under workers compensation and there are not premiums being paid on them ... and those premiums can be as much as four or five dollars per hour. So when they're not being paid, not only is there unfair competition that's afforded the employers that employ them, there's a cost that is not being recouped by the states.

What we need to do is enforce our existing laws, and primarily enforce them with regard to employers that employ people illegally. If the opportunity to work dries up, these folks will go home.

Because if the source of employment dries up, and the incentives are not there for unfair employers to put these people to work, then the problem can be mitigated and it can be mitigated in a hurry, because the laws are in fact there.

I support legislation to train, equip and empower local law enforcement people to enforce immigration laws. People say, what about the cost. I believe the costs will be recouped in the revenues that are being lost.

On the federal level, I believe we have to find incentives for countries like Mexico and others to take care of their own citizens .. so that their people are willing to stay home and not risk their lives coming up here and working for money that they should be making at home.

Candidates for Sheriff

I started with the Sheriff's office in 1996. I worked Sterling Park. I worked the evening shift in the smallest sector in the county, but yet it was one of the busiest. Back in 96, I saw the problems we had, beginning in 97, 98 and 99. Immigration issues, problems beginning with gangs. Those were some of the reasons that brought me to where I am today. But I'm going to give you the two main reason why I'm running.

First and foremost is because of the unethical behavior of our current Sheriff's Office and the administration thereof. I'm not going to touch on that further; you can check on my Web site and some of the news releases that will be coming out about that.

But tonight I'm going to talk about the absolute lack of vision we have in combatting problems such as the gang issue, and we're on the front lines. And that's what I'm going to be speaking about tonight, talking about a new direction for police work - the proactive direction that we're going to be taking. We're still policing the same way were were 20-30 years ago; unfortunately the gang problem's gotten worse. I realize this is about immigration, but the two do go hand in hand. Now you've heard the two previous speakers talk about some of the social and financial issues, and those are certainly a concern to me as a taxpayer and I support their ideas. What I want to do is look at an aggressive approach to how we can deal with this ourselves from a law enforcement perspective.

Let me begin by talking about the gang issue. We didn't publicly admit we had a gang problem until almost 2003. I worked in Sterling Park until 2001. I knew the gang houses back then. I saw the problems. I could drive behind the Food Lion in Sterling Park and see the graffiti. I knew it; the residents that lived there knew it. It wasn't until 2003 that Frank Wolf gave us some money from the state to start the Northern Virginia regional gang task force, and I am appreciative of that.

Unfortunately, that was about five or six years too late.

I thin illegal immigration is directly tied to our gang activity, overcrowded housing, people driving around here without drivers licenses, insurance. A lot of our hit and runs are the result of illegal immigrants who don't want to get caught.

Speaking with people, I hear about stories with 15, 16 people living in a townhouse. And families coming home and there's parties going on and people are urinating in their front lawns, and this is just unacceptable. We need to take and aggressiive approach to this.

And one way to do that is by the ICE training, 287(g). ICE training is from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. By the way, this training has been available since 1996, since Sheriff Simpson's first year in office. What this training does, is it gives our officers the same jurisdication and the same authority that the federal government officers have - not only to have access to the databases that would find people who are here illegally, but to have them deported. We currently don't have access to that.

I see this as a tremendous deterrent. And I'd like to make a comparison, since a lot of you are here from Herndon. When I was driving back in the 80s, Herndon kind of had the reputation that if your went 7 or 8 miles over the speed limit, you're probably getting a ticket. I'm not proposing that as your next sheriff. But I will say that it was an effective deterrent. When I drove into Herndon I looked down at my speedometer; I remembered that. And likewise, the ICE program and the training it will provide our officers will be a deterrent to people that would come here illegally, commit crimes - assaults, stabbings ... If they know that when they commit these kinds of crimes here and they're here illegally that they're going to get deported, I see that as a great deterrent. And one, that when we talk about the cost of it, $500 an officer to get trained is not too much in my opinion.

Now I'm going to give you one specific reason that this one really hit home to me. ... Back on August 13, 2001, a man named Jose Sibrian, was ordered by a U.S. Department of Immigration judge to be deported. Jose Sibrian was a Sterling resident. During the past half decade he was arrested more than 15 times by Loudoun, Fairfax and Herndon police departments. During that time, none of those jurisdictions had access to the ICE database. On November 20 of this past year, Joseph Passarelli - a Herndon man, father of three, was hit and killed allegedly by Jose Sibrian who fled the scene. Fifteen times. And to use a quote from Fairfax County Police Officer Camille Neville, she says "We don't specifically look for illegal aliens. We don't have the federal authority to do this. If we find someone who admits to being illegal, we'll report that to ICE."

[More on Passarelli can be found here, here and here.]

This is not proactive policing. ... We can talk about he 9-11 hijackers Mohammad Atta and Hani Hanjour. They were both here on visa violations. They were stopped by law enforcement up here as well as in Florida. If we'd had access to that database - now am I going to say we could have stopped 9-11? No. But we certainly should have been working with the federal government.

And this is nothing new. We've had ten years to take this training on. I applaud Eugene Delgaudio, the supervisor from Sterling Park, because I know since at least September of last year that he has pressed Sheriff Simpson on getting ICE training for our officers. And we've done nothing more than deliberate, have committees, talk about it - all while people like Joseph Passarelli are dying. I find that appalling.

Now that I've made this, and the inaction of the Sheriff a campaign issue, he may be forced to do something about it, and I hope he is. But unfortunately for many of the people who have already lost their lives to illegal immigrants that could've been prevented, it's a little bit too late. And once again, like our gang problem, we're playing catch up.

Herndon is taking on the ICE training. What do you think that means for residents of Sterling Park, and Leesburg and Catoctin District? They're going to take an aggressive approach that's going to push those issues here. And if we don't get on top of it, then we're going to be dealing with things much worse than what we're dealing with right now.

And I assume a lot of you live in Sterling Park. To close, I'll just ask you to take a look at your neighborhoods. I worked the streets there in 97, I saw how they changed. I spent five years on the motor squad in Sterling Park again. Saw the demographics change; stopped people with no drivers license, no identification at all. It's out of control. And you need to ask yourself, when you look at places like Sterling Park: Is it better under Sheriff Simpson's watch? Is it better than it was 12 years ago when he first took office, despite the fact that this training has been available?

I'm going to take a progressive, and aggressive approach to law enforcement. Tonight I'm only talking about immigration and the ICE training. But this is a sign of things to come. We need to be proactive and not reactive. And I want the board of supervisors to hold the Sheriff's Office - when I'm elected, hold us accountable for these things, and the voters need to hold our elected officials accountable. ... If you want to see a change, and you want to see an aggressive stance taken on the ICE training, then you'll vote for me on June 9. If you think we're headed in the right direction, and you think the gang problem has gotten better, and the illegal immigration problem has gotten better, then you can vote for my opponent, Sheriff Simpson.

I have a proven record of leadership. I've taken a proactive stand from the very beginning. Anyone who's been in Loudoun County long enough to know, knows that I've talked about these gang issues for many years. It took several years to get the funding through the county government to get this gang unit up and running back in the late 90s. And finally in 2003 we put thig thing together and actually had it fully functional. It took some time on my part and on our part to get this to happen with the board of supervisors. And I take this very seriously.

This is a critical time for Loudoun County. If you look back to the sniper incident, if you look at the homeland security issues, things that local law enforcement never had to deal with before. Now is not the time to change simply for the sake of change. We're at a very critical point. We need this experience running your law enforcement in Loudoun County. These are not just issues of the past, these are going to be issues of the future also as this county continues to grow and as the jurisdictions around us continue to grow. We're going to have gang issues; we're going to have traffic issues; we're going to have crime issues - things that need to be dealt with very proactively and very firmly.

And I've done a lot of work, not just locally but regionally, in Richmond, in DC, working to strengthen our ability as law enforcement to deal with it, whether it's illegal immigration, whether it's homeland security types of issues. I serve on a lot of different committees, nationally, locally and regionally - and that's the type of person you need running your law enforcement.

And I stand committed to leading this agency in the professional and responsive manner that it has been for all these years. I've been your sheriff since 1996, made a tremendous amount of change in that time period and a lot of good has happened. There's a lot more to be done, and I am committed to make that happen.

As Sheriff Simpson mentioned the sniper shooting: You know, that's an interesting case, because if you do some research on that - it was back in Washington, an officer who responded to a complaint who believed that Lee Boyd Malvo and his mother were here illegally. He called INS. They fingerprinted. And it was that fingerprint that they found in a liquor store, I believe it was in Alabama, that broke that case open.

This is the kind of access that we need. It's not just about Loudoun County, but the federal government's failure to address the issue, and what we're going to do about it. And the ICE training is a tool that I believe is worthwhile. If you can save lives then that's what we should be doing.

And while I know it's been talked about for many months in the Sheriff's Office, I'm here to tell you that on the first day I will direct my chief deputy to issue the directive to start our guys getting ICE training. We're going to get our guys in the jail trained; we're going to start getting some of our gang units trained, and we have to work with the feds on this. We have to go into a memorandum of agreement, and we will have to abide by that. It's not a case of racial profiling: We will be supervised, and there will be some working together with these federal agencies.

But I'm not going to sit back here and allow cases like Joseph Passarelli to continue on my watch. That's not going to happen.

Let me explain 287(g). First you have to understand what that does and doesn't do for you, before you jump into it with both feet.

I've met with ICE on a number of occasions. I've met in a group setting with regional chiefs. I've also met with them one on one - they've come out to our department because I told them I was interested in finding out the details of what this can and can't do for us. And we had ICE sitting in our office and they explained what they would do, what this program was all about.

There is a misconception that the 287(g) program just gives us blanket authority to do whatever we want to as local law enforcement with illegal immigrants or trying to determine whether someone's here illegally or not. That's not what that program is all about.

They are very specific that the only people you can deal with through this program, and the only people they will deal with and will accept in this program, are criminals - convicted criminals. And they also have to have done their time in your local jail; if they come up on assault charges in Loudoun County and get sentenced to a year in jail, they will do that year in jail before Immigration is interested in them.

Now when you sign the agreement, what it ensures you is that when you have someone you pick up that is a criminal that matches this criteria that they will pick them up. And what it allows you to do is start the deportation process as a deputy sheriff.

What we have now in Loudoun County with the regional gang task force, is we have ICE agents assigned to that task force. And if we have someone who falls into this category that we have arrested that is here illegally; once their finished with their local charges, ICE picks them up from our jail within 24-48 hours. If we have an issue where we need to have someone turned over to ICE immediately, that there is a federal detainer or whatever the case may be - that they are wanted in another jurisdiction, ICE will pick them up immediately. Because this person that is on our task force takes care of that. So we have a person that works with us on a daily basis.

We may be in better shape than some other jurisdictions that may be further out from this area because they don't have that advantage.

Now the disadvantage to that program for Loudoun County is, right now if we have someone that needs to be picked up by the feds they pick them up within 24-48 hours. If we sign this MOU with them, let me tell you they call the shots. Whether they say we're going to give you this or give you that, well there is a lot to this program that is not up front until you sit down and talk with them and say what does this really mean, what's our obligation, what are you going to do for us as the federal government.

And it's basically to save them time, to save them money, to save them the aggravation of having to do what they're supposed to be doing in some cases. The disadvantage is if we enter into this agreement we become a repository for federal inmates. We have to guarantee to them that we will hold these federal inmates. And let's say we have someone who has finished their local time. Now, the way we have the arrangement, the feds pick them up within 24-48 hours. If we sign this agreement, now we keep them until they deport them, which could be months.

Right now we spend about $1 million and a half in costs housing inmates in other jurisdictions because our jail is so overloaded. I'd rather have these people that the feds are supposed to pick up - I'd rather have them pick them up today, and put them in Alexandria or put them somewhere else, and get them out of our jail, because our tax dollars are paying to house about 180 inmates in other jurisdictions because we don't have room in our jail.

Now the jail that we're building is going to house more inmates. But it's not big enough. If it was open today it would be about 150 inmates too small. And one of the board members at a meeting asked me, well Sheriff why are we building a jail that's too small? Well, we're building a jail that's too small because you're just now building the jail I asked for back in 1996. We should have been finished with the second phase of that.

You really need to look at this 287(g) and what that actually means before you sign the agreement. I've asked them if we could get the training without signing the agreement: No, they won't give you the training, you have to sign the agreement. We have a very good working relationship with Immigration; whatever we need, they do. We call them up, say we've got somebody in our jail, they pick them up within 24 hours, 48 at the most.

If we entered into this agreement, once that person is picked up, once the arrest is made, it now becomes an ICE issue. We no longer have control over that case. ICE controls it; the ICE supervisor controls it. Our supervisor has no input in it. We as a Sheriff's Office no longer have any control over that case - it's now an ICE case, it's not a Loudoun County case. They call the shots. If I pick up someone who happens to be here illegally, who has committed no crime, and I call ICE to pick them up, they won't pick them up.

So there are a lot of things that go along with this. It sounds great, but when you start looking into what it really means there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. I've met with them, I've talked to other jurisdictions about what they can and can't do: Some jurisdictions don't even want to hear about it, other have jumped in and now they're saying, hmm this doesn't do all this great stuff I thought it was going to do. I thought it was going to save me tons of money. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Because if it was as simple as rounding up people who are here illegally and turning them over to the feds and the feds deport them - they can't handle what they've got already. So they're not looking for a process to make it easier for you to get more and more people in jail, because they don't have any place to put the ones they've got now, or the resources to deal with the ones they've got now. It's a bigger problem - and us jumping in, saying sure we'll do that and get this training, and we sign this MOU that they have crafted to work out to their advantage.

So there's a lot more to this 287(g) than just signing up, getting the training and now everything's going to be great. It just doesn't work that way.

First of all, we do have an ICE agent as part of the Northern Virginia regional gang task force. Unfortunately, that ICE agent doesn't sit around in our jail running every inmate through to find out who's wanted. And Sheriff sits here and talks about how if we find somebody we contact them because we have a great working relationship with them: We can't find somebody, because we don't have access to the database. If you don't have access to the database, how are we going to know if they're here illegally? Jose Sibrian was issued a warrant for his arrest back in 2001. Sheriff Simpson had him in our jail. He was arrested for DUI, tresspassing. Seven arrests for driving without an operator's license. Where's the ICE agent at that point?

Unfortunately, Joseph Passaralli's family does not have a father today because the way we're doing it is not working. And if you're going to sit here and talk about it like that I think we need to just put it on the table and let people know what we're dealing with.

And I do appreciate Eugene Delgaudio. Eugene and I have no working relationship but I do appreciate your stance on the ICE issue.

As far as the jail overcrowding - that is something that the board of supervisors is going to have to help us work with. We do have to farm out inmates. But when we score somebody for the feds, and they're here on a federal warrant, a federal detainer, they pay money for that. So are we going to let people continue to go while we don't have access to ICE training? Or are we going to be aggressive with this? Herndon's doing it.

As you saw with the gang problems - as Sheriff Simpson said earlier it's a problem for Herndon: Well look at Sterling Park now, it's a problem for us. So what do you think the problem's going to be now that they've got ICE training?

ICE training is not a fix-all or a cure-all for any of this. You mention the fact that this gentleman was locked up in our jail for a DUI - there's a court problem. There's an issue as to why this person is on the street in the first place. That goes beyond what I can do or what 287(g) can do for that matter. Herndon is part of the same task force: They have the same advantage and the same benefit. The fact that they're getting 287(g) training isn't going to have an impact on us one way or another.

To say the feds pay for beds and pay for the prisoners we house: Well, that's true. When they finish their local charges they don't pay a dime until they become federal inmates. So if they're doing a year in our jail, there may be a detainer on them but we don't get a dime until they've finished with their local charges. Once they've finished their local time, then the feds will start paying. So they'll pay us for a day, because they pick them up within 24-48 hours. So there's a lot more to this whole process than meets the eye.

NEXT: The people of Herndon and Loudoun speak.