From the Fairfax Times in Virginia:

Herndon follows trend with federal training
By: Gregg MacDonald
10/03/2006

The Town of Herndon has joined a small but growing number of municipalities nationwide that have decided to tackle illegal immigration at the local level in the absence of a national policy.
At last week’s town council meeting, Mayor Stephen DeBenedittis and five council members approved a resolution allowing the Herndon Police Department to start receiving federal immigration law enforcement training, providing them with the ability to detain and help deport illegal aliens.

The Herndon Town Council passes a resolution enabling the town to pursue federal immigration law training. Council also drafts two other immigration-related resolutions that would deny business licenses and town contracts to anyone not able to prove U.S. citizenship.

October 2006

Jackson Miller, a member of the Manassas City Council and a former police officer, urges fellow council members to follow Herndon’s example and pursue federal immigration law training.

During a press conference that evening, police Chief Toussaint Summers said the training will allow officers to “immediately begin processing initial deportation paperwork on illegal aliens.”

But the approval process for the training may take a little longer than expected judging by the experience of others that have already applied for it.

John Hensley, chief of the Cosa Mesa, Calif., Police Department, was in a similar position about a year ago and is still waiting to be able to implement training for his officers.

Lt. Allen Huggins, a spokesman for the Cosa Mesa Police Department, told The Times Monday that the city council there approved the federal training initiative last year and “contacted the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to examine the criteria and procedures for enforcement of federal immigration laws by local law enforcement.”

However, a memorandum of agreement, the next step in the process, is still being tinkered with and has yet to be ratified, according to Huggins.

“The federal government doesn’t move quickly,” Huggins said. “A lot more cities and towns are getting into this, and I think [the bureau] is taking more time, thinking it through more carefully, determining what they will allow and will not allow. They’re trying to be consistent in all areas.”

The Herndon Town Council also is considering two other immigration-related resolutions that would deny business licenses and town contracts to anyone not able to prove U.S. citizenship.

You can read more here.

The quote in the article that says the feds move slowly is accurate…it has been more than five years since 9/11 and our borders are still not secure. We should all be asking our city and county governments here in Georgia when they will offer the same protection that Herndon and other American local governments have begun to seek.