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As the date for implementation of Arizona’s controversial immigration law approaches, this documentary about an earlier Virginia battle along similar lines, which in bits and pieces once became a YouTube sensation, is obviously very timely. And it may well provide a foreshadowing of how the Arizona debate is likely to end.

The episode occurred in Prince William County, where a blogger named Greg Letiecq was instrumental in establishing a local organization, Help Save Manassas, that capitalized on increasing concern about the growth of the Latino population in the region. His postings about escalating crime, though not backed up with evidence, fed on residents’ complaints about loud music, crowded houses and having to hear Spanish spoken in public places.

Naturally, a public official soon came forward to do something about the situation—Corey Stewart, one of the local commissioners, who engineered passage of a resolution instructing police to investigate the residence status of anyone if they have “probable cause” to suspect of being illegal aliens. The resolution divided the community and led to long public meetings at which both sides expressed their views in often pointed terms, but implementation was postponed while an analysis was done of the cost of implementing the policy—an amount estimated by police chief Charles Deane as requiring a tax increase—but eventually it went into effect. (The title is taken from the street address of Guadencio Fernandez, a man who posted a large sign protesting the resolution on his lawn—a sort of low-rent response to Letiecq’s blog.)

The issue gained wider currency when the producers began posting bits of their footage on YouTube, which in turn attracted coverage from the Washington Post and the intervention of outside activist groups on both sides. The tide turned against Stewart when he seemed to attack Deane, a local hero to many, and word began to spread about how the new policy was actually being enforced. An opposing blog was set up, and elections eroded Stewart’s power. Evidence of the negative impact of the policy on the local economy was yet another element in a hotly-contested debate about rescinding the “probable cause” aspect of the resolution, which had led to charges of racial profiling.

Though “9500 Liberty” takes a sober, judicious approach with co-director Annabel Park offering narration that’s flat and undemonstrative, the filmmakers’ opinion on the situation is hardly a mystery. One need only watch the segment they choose to open with—in which an angry, middle-aged white man berates a crowd of Latinos, partially because he objects to having to listen to a grocery clerk speaking Spanish—to get the point that the fear that lay behind the resolution movement was baseless and even absurd. And certainly Stewart, Letiecq and their cohorts (including the secretary of Help Save Manassas, whose voice literally trembles with rage) don’t do themselves any favors with their outrageous claims and their unsavory outside supporters.

Of course, the outcome of the Virginia controversy remains murky, and tempers still flare over it. But this homespun documentary offers an insightful look into one of the earliest eruptions of local acrimony over the issue of illegal immigrants, which may also serve as a barometer of how others will turn out.