It’s patrol day for Maureen Wood and Allison Kipp. Armed with a notebook and cell phone, the two friends set off in a minivan in search of changes they don’t like in their hometown.
Hispanic men gather at a 7-Eleven. Graffiti sprouts on a back fence. The women catalog it all, planning to take up each item with local authorities.
“This isn’t who we are,” says Kipp, disgust clouding her face. “This isn’t what we want our community to be like.”
Ask Kipp and Wood what they’re mad about, and the lifelong area residents are explicit: Unchecked immigration lies at the heart of their town’s troubles.
It’s a sense of unrest familiar in small towns and suburbs across America. Immigrants have flooded the country in great numbers in the past. What’s different now is where they’re settling–far from the border states and big cities that long absorbed the huddled masses.
Their integration into small-town America is marked in Manassas, as elsewhere, by a language of fear, resentment and anger. Under pressure from longtime residents, local officials have cracked down, ordering police to dramatically increase the amount of time spent checking people’s immigration status.
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