Researchers, social activists, and government officials in Prince William County, Virginia, have had nearly three years to assess the economic, political, and social ramifications of a law passed by county supervisors there requiring police to check the immigration status of detainees.

Some argue that mass migration, business closures, public-image setbacks, and decreased school enrollment tell the story. Others say the economic meltdown and real estate crash make it tough to determine the law’s real impact on the community.

Still, anecdotal evidence in PWC, a Washington, D.C., suburb, provides clear examples of what Arizona may face after enacting the toughest illegal-immigration law in the country.

Debra Lattanzi Shutika, an English professor at George Mason University who has spent years researching immigrant communities in the Northeast, said the PWC measure was provoked by concerned politicians and residents—predominantly white and native-born citizens—who thought they were losing their neighborhoods to immigrant influences.

“They really wanted to send a message to immigrant communities that immigrants weren’t welcome,” said Shutika, who conducted dozens of field interviews in 2008 with non-immigrant and immigrant residents in Manassas, Virginia.

A city of about 35,000, PWC was seeing an influx of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, as well as from Korea, Vietnam, and other Asian countries.

To Many, Ordinance Was the Final Straw

The PWC law was passed in July 2007, before the housing crash. Soon after, immigrants began leaving the community, moving to other parts of Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere in the U.S. Some went back to their native countries, Shutika said.

In one Latino neighborhood, more than 150 foreclosures dotted the streets.

“It was clear talking to people, in some cases, the ordinances were the last straw,” Shutika said. “People were more likely to abandon their homes in foreclosure.”

In other cases, Latinos—both legal and undocumented—were afraid to leave their homes, drive to the store, or allow their children to play in their front yards for fear of being profiled. Soccer fields, once flooded with league games and picnics, emptied.

“A lot of them felt very shut in,” said Shutika, who moved to the Beltway in 2001. “You don’t see the Latino soccer leagues in Manassas anymore.”

A 2009 University of Virginia study based on the U.S. census, county statistics, resident interviews, and school-enrollment data found nearly 5,000 immigrants left PWC between mid-2007 and the end of 2008.

That same study reported enrollment of English speakers of other languages (not the same as English as a second language) in county schools dropped by 247 students in fall 2008. In the prior eight years, fall enrollment among that population had risen steadily—by 1,450 students a year, on average.

Latino business owners who ran restaurants and grocery stores told county officials they were getting hit hard because of the new policy.