WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A bill sponsored by a Northern Virginia legislator would give state and local police agencies the power to arrest illegal immigrants.

Del. David Albo, R-Springfield, said he filed the bill this year because state and local authorities currently cannot hold an immigrant who is in the country illegally since immigration law is a federal responsibility. Police, he said, have had to release immigrants they thought we were in Virginia illegally if federal agents did not want to pick up the suspects.

"Right now there's nothing local police can do," Albo said. To fix the problem, Albo's bill would make it a state crime for immigrants to be in Virginia if the federal government has already determined they entered the country illegally. If the illegal immigrant is violating a state law, then the local authorities can keep them in custody.

The federal government maintains a database of those illegal immigrants, which state and local police officers are able to access from laptops in their patrol cars. The database contains information such as name, aliases, eye and hair color and a picture, but not biometric information such as fingerprints.

The federal government does keep biometric information on illegal immigrants but not on the database officers can access. Prosecutors would have to request that information from the U.S. Department of Justice, Albo said.

Opponents of the bill told the House Courts of Justice Committee last week that the measure would make immigrants less likely to report crimes to police or cooperate with police investigators because they fear they will be deported.

Albo said the bill is tightly worded to keep police from harassing anyone who looks like they are from another country because it only allows a name to be run through the database if they police have arrested the individual for another reason.

"You can't be rounded up for this," Albo said. "You would already have had to have committed another offense. I spent two years writing this bill because of those concerns."

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com