Suspects and convicts booked at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford County may soon be subject to residency status screenings as more Northern Virginia jurisdictions prepare crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

Stafford County Sheriff Charles Jett Tuesday proposed forming an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to screen inmates at the regional jail as the Stafford County Board discussed developing a stricter approach to illegal immigration.

Searching for a compromise approach between not checking legal status at all and having police officers ask for proof of legal residency on the streets, Jett called the agreement, or a 287-g program, the middle ground.

“They’re being booked in on other charges and this allows us to find out if they’re illegal aliens or not,” Jail Superintendent Joe Higgs said, noting the proposal could be approved at the jail authority’s meeting next month.

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In 24 jurisdictions across the country, 20,000 inmates or suspects investigated for local crimes have been processed for possible deportation. Interest in such programs is booming nationally and across the state.

The Town of Herndon and the Prince William County Adult Detention Center started screening inmates for deportation earlier this year, while Loudoun and Culpeper County are attempting to enter the program now.

Immigrant advocates strongly oppose the jail screenings, saying they can result in a chilling effect on the immigrant community, making them reluctant to come forward as victims or witnesses of crimes because they associate local police with ICE.

But as the public pushes for more legal residency reviews, Jett said avoiding local intervention is “ostrich-like,” denying there is a problem.

However, urging officers to check legal status during investigations of crime suspects, as Prince William County Supervisors did in a July 10 resolution, “weighs down their ability to do the preventative work that must be done.”

“While we want to work harder to enforce the law, we still want [the immigrant community] to trust us,” Jett told The Examiner.

Resolution

At the meeting Tuesday in Stafford, Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to affirm English as the official language, adopting a resolution similar to what neighboring Culpeper County approved earlier this month.

dgenz@dcexaminer.com