After seeking to pressure localities to work with federal immigration authorities by proposing to withhold funding, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is now directly ordering state police and local jails to cooperate.
Youngkin signed an executive order last Thursday (Feb. 27) directing the Virginia State Police to sign an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would create a task force with deputized troopers who can help identify and arrest undocumented individuals “who pose a risk to public safety.”
The Virginia Department of Corrections was ordered to enter a memorandum of understanding with ICE allowing state detention and processing facilities to be used for immigration purposes and designating trained corrections officers as immigration officers.
Executive Order 47 also tasks Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security with contacting all sheriffs and other officials who operate local and regional jails to “request a certification confirming their full cooperation with ICE” and the planned state police task force.
The Virginia State Police is “taking measures” to comply with the executive order, and an agreement with ICE is currently in the works, a spokesperson for the agency said.
“Virginia State Police’s mission is to provide for a secure Commonwealth,” Virginia State Police Superintendent Colonel Matthew D. Hanley said in a statement. “As will be the case here, we frequently partner with other agencies to support the Governor’s initiatives on violent crime.”
Fairfax County reviewing executive order
The agreements proposed by Youngkin would be part of ICE’s 287(g) program, which is based on a section of federal law adopted in 1996 that gave ICE the authority to partner with local and state law enforcement agencies on identifying, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
However, participation in the program is voluntary, and the directive’s request that local jails certify full cooperation with ICE appears to clash with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office’s current policy recognizing only court-approved warrants, not administrative detainers or requests.
The office previously had an agreement with ICE signed in 2012 where it detained people up to 48 hours past their release date based on an administrative request. Under pressure from local immigrant rights advocacy groups, who argued that the detentions were unconstitutional, Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid terminated the agreement effective May 23, 2018.
Kathryn Pavluchuk, general counsel for the sheriff’s office, says the office is in the process of reviewing Youngkin’s executive order.
“The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has always followed, and will continue to follow all local, state, and federal laws,” Pavluchuk said in a statement to FFXnow.
Youngkin issued his executive order just days after getting a budget package from the General Assembly that excluded his proposal to withhold state funding from localities like Fairfax County that have policies limiting cooperation with ICE.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted a Trust Policy in 2021 that barred county employees, including police officers, from sharing information about an individual’s citizenship status with ICE unless required by law. Fairfax County Public Schools followed suit with a similar policy in 2022.
For now, the Trust Policy appears to be unaffected, since it doesn’t govern the sheriff’s office.
“We are continuing to review it, but initially, it is clear that it only pertains to the Virginia State Police, jails, and sheriffs across Virginia — none of which are under the purview of the Board of Supervisors,” Chairman Jeff McKay said.
In a press release, Youngkin, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Attorney General Jason Miyares touted the executive order as a means of keeping Virginians safe, citing a handful of cases, including an alleged rape in Herndon, to illustrate a connection between undocumented immigration and crime.
“Dangerous criminal illegal immigrants should not be let back into our communities to assault, rape and murder. They should be sent back where they came from,” Youngkin said.
ICE cooperation will reduce public safety, critics argue
Immigrant rights groups, however, argue that collaboration with ICE actually undermines public safety by discouraging immigrants from reporting crimes and reducing trust in the police and other government services.
Noting that Black and brown immigrants have historically been disproportionately targeted, CASA Virginia Director Luis Aguilar compared ICE partnership agreements under the 287(g) program to the Fugitive Slave Acts, which tasked law enforcement with capturing people who fled enslavement.
“These agreements deputize law enforcement to act as immigration agents, a role they were never meant to fill,” Aguilar said. “This collaboration with ICE has not only proven costly for state and local governments, but has also disproportionately targeted individuals with little or no criminal history, further deepening racial disparities in our criminal legal system. This is horrible for Virginia’s families.”
National research has found that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are less likely to be arrested for violent crimes and incarcerated than people born in the U.S., and there’s no correlation between localities that limit cooperation with ICE and crime rates, according to ACLU People Power Fairfax Lead Advocate Diane Burkley Alejandro.
She noted that the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents dozens of police departments, has objected to local agencies being compelled to assist with immigration enforcement.
“The Governor is playing politics with our public safety, showing his utter disregard for the facts and the rule of law,” Burkley Alejandro said by email. “We strongly oppose his plan to deputize VA prison guards/state police as ICE agents. The xenophobic targeting of hard-working immigrants creates fear and will make us all less safe. He should not divert state funds into doing the federal government’s work when we have so many needs in Virginia.”
Like CASA, ACLU People Power Fairfax was part of a coalition that advocated for Fairfax County to adopt its Trust Policy, and Burkley Alejandro says she’s confident that local leaders will continue to limit cooperation with ICE “to that required by law.”
“The Executive Order does not seek to alter that policy,” she said. “Even so, the Executive Order creates more fear and distrust in our communities. But creating terror seems to be the point.”
With the Trump administration pushing for speedier and highly publicized arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants, fear is already being felt in southeastern Fairfax County, where one in four residents was born outside the U.S., according to Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-34), who represents the area.
Early in President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, ICE agents conducted a raid on Rising Hope Mission Church in Woodlawn, detaining six people as they were leaving a hypothermia shelter hosted by the church, Surovell recalled.
Surovell’s district was targeted again within the first week of Trump’s second term, when ICE officers reportedly woke up residents at the Beacon Hill Apartments in Groveton on Jan. 19.
“In my district, people are scared and worried about what it means,” Surovell said of the federal crackdown.
When asked about Youngkin’s directive, Surovell contended that “engaging in PR stunts” will lead to fewer crimes being solved and prosecuted because immigrants might be more reluctant to call the police if they’re a victim or witness.
ICE already gets notified when someone without legal status is booked into local jails, but the agency often fails to file the “proper paperwork” for them to be detained or doesn’t show up to take them into custody once they’re eligible for release, Surovell says.
“I don’t think the governor and attorney general are being honest with the public about what’s really happening today on the ground,” Surovell said. “… They’re trying to blame our law enforcement for a federal problem, and they should really focus their fire on President Trump and ICE, who refuse to follow the systems that we’ve had in place for decades to ensure our communities stay safe.”
