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Hispanic hopes to become voice for immigrants in Virginia county
(EFE News Service Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Salvadoran-born Aracely Panameno says she is running for office in Virginia's Prince William County to become "the voice" of the area's increasingly beleaguered immigrant community.
In an interview with Efe, Panameno, who is making her first bid for office, said she has been working as an activist for 20 years, fighting for "better public policies at the federal level that will benefit everyone."
That is precisely what this Salvadoran wants for the county where she lives, which lies within the Washington metropolitan area.
The woman now seeking to represent the Neabsco district on the Prince William Board of Supervisors, who came to the United States as a refugee from El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war, accuses some politicians of seeking to divert attention from the county's real problems by attacking immigrants.
"Immigration has become a pawn in the political campaign," she said.
"Implementing a new anti-immigrant resolution doesn't help anyone, it even puts us more in debt," Panameno said, referring to the Board's Oct. 16 passage of a budget that withholds various public services to undocumented residents and gives immigration responsibilities to county and municipal police agencies.
Advocates of the measure, which is being challenged in court, contend the county can't afford to provide services to undocumented residents because it has no way to collect taxes from them.
"For me the solution is to create a system in Prince William that works the way the Internal Revenue Service does at the federal level," Panameno said.
The IRS gives undocumented immigrants who have been working in the country a taxpayer identification number, which does not legalize their situation but does allow them to pay their taxes.
"These immigrants also pay taxes every time they buy a product in this country or when they pay their bills," she said.
Panameno, who has lived in the United States for 26 years, said that if this is simply a budgetary problem, then "they have to stop demonizing a sector of the population that can contribute and in fact does already contribute economically to the wellbeing of all."
"Let them work and file their taxes on their income. It will provide more revenues for the government and that way no one can say that taxpayers' money is being spent on a sector that doesn't deserve it," the Salvadoran said.
Panameno said she doesn't propose "that the border not be controlled and that people come in left and right," but considered that controlling waves of migrants lies within the "jurisdicction of the federal government."
The candidate, who describes herself as "living proof of the American Dream," said that she decided to get into politics for "personal reasons," because though she has her citizenship, she has felt the way immigrants do in a county that seems less and less inclined to accept their presence.
"The other day I was driving through the neighborhood with my daughter and they shouted obscenities at me, just because I look Hispanic," she said.
"I have always fought from outside of politics, and to take this decision has been hard for me, but I want to let it be known that not all of us agree with the way things are being done, and through politics I'm in the privileged position of having my voice heard," she said.
She is aware that undocumented immigrants, whose interests she defends, don't have the power of the vote and for that reason she insists that her campaign stress a better use of public money, which according to Panameno, is something equally understood by "Republicans, Democrats, whites, Hispanics and blacks."
"We have to focus the discussion on something more concrete like the budget, and not mix it with immigration," the candidate said.
"I want to give a conciliatory message. I believe that there's room for everyone and that another solution is possible," she said.
Copyright 2007 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., Source: The Financial Times Limited
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