By MARY CLARE JALONICK and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a partial government shutdown looms at week’s end, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has laid out a list of demands for the Department of Homeland Security, including an enforceable code of conduct for federal agents conducting immigration arrests and a requirement that they identify themselves to the public.
With the nation’s eyes on Minneapolis after residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by federal agents this month, Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, with some calling for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s impeachment.
In Richmond, state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim is pushing three pieces of legislation that he says will keep “the chaos, lawlessness, and violence that we have seen perpetrated against Minnesotans from coming to Virginia.”
A group of protestors blocked traffic at Capital One’s headquarters in Tysons this morning (Tuesday).
Organizers called for the finance giant to drop a $90 million loan to the Arlington-based weapons company Elbit Systems, which they say supplies the Israeli military and federal immigration enforcement agencies.
A near-constant cacophony of car horns issued from the core of Maple Avenue in Vienna yesterday afternoon (Sunday), and this time, it wasn’t an expression of frustration with congestion.
Instead, passing drivers were honking in support of protestors lining both sides of the town’s main street in response to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shooting poet and mother Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday (Jan. 7).
The federal government is now leveling its own criminal charge against the man accused of a recent murder in Reston.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia has charged 23-year-old Marvin Fernando Morales Ortez with possessing a firearm as someone who is “illegally” present in the U.S.
A Reston man was released from the custody of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday (Dec. 17) less than 24 hours before allegedly killing another man, police said.
After a nearly two-hour manhunt, 23-year-old Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with one count of second degree murder — a felony that carries a maximum of 40 years in prison.
Dozens of protestors last night (Thursday) held a candlelight vigil to protest recent apprehensions of multiple Fairfax County residents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the Hybla Valley area.
Three unidentified men along the Richmond Highway (Route 1) corridor were detained by ICE on Nov. 22, according to Tenants and Workers United, which hosted the vigil outside a local church.
Fairfax County school leaders are paying careful attention to start-of-school enrollment figures, attempting to determine if the Trump administration’s immigration policies are leading some families to keep their children at home.
“Some students are a bit reluctant to be in school at this time,” Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid told school board members during a Sept. 25 report on the first month of classes.
Conditions at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Chantilly have improved in recent weeks, four of Northern Virginia’s federal legislators say.
Sen. Mark Warner, as well as Reps. James Walkinshaw, Suhas Subramanyam and Don Beyer, visited the facility last Friday (Sept. 26) “after a month of attempting to gain access.”
Protestors filled the sidewalks around the Route 50 and Stonecroft Blvd intersection in Chantilly yesterday (Wednesday), rallying against a nearby ICE facility with reportedly inhumane conditions.
Stories emerged in recent weeks of dire conditions inside ICE’s Washington Field Office, where immigrants picked up during the Trump administration’s takeover of D.C. are being detained.
