Nine progressive prosecutors around the country, including Fairfax County’s Steve Descano, have joined forces in hopes of holding federal agents accountable for violating state laws.
The Project to Fight Against Federal Overreach (FAFO) coalition, which launched yesterday (Wednesday), aims to “rein in unlawful conduct” amid a growing presence of federal immigration and law enforcement in communities across the country.
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.”
By JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) — A U.S. Army Reserve lawyer detailed as a federal immigration judge has been fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum at a high rate out of step with the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals, The Associated Press has learned.
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.
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.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Chantilly field office, typically used for administrative proceedings, is being turned into a “makeshift” detention facility, dozens of immigrant rights advocacy groups say.
With arrests surging during the ongoing federal takeover of D.C., ICE has begun detaining individuals for “several days at a time” in a holding room intended to keep people just for a few hours during processing, according to organizations in the Free Them All VA Coalition.
The Trump administration has released a new list of localities and states it considers “sanctuary jurisdictions,” and Fairfax County is no longer on it.
The Justice Department identified some three dozen states, cities and counties as so-called sanctuary jurisdictions on Tuesday (Aug. 5), two months after the federal government quietly removed a much longer list that included many localities that support the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
A crowd of 100 new citizens from 95 different countries was indeed pumped up Friday as former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an actor and former bodybuilder, delivered the keynote address at George Washington’s Mount Vernon during a Fourth of July naturalization ceremony.
Employees of the hallowed estate estimated about 1,000 attendees were on hand for the festivities, with members of the public joining media members and families of new citizens.
A West Virginia man is no longer facing jail time after being accused of extorting a woman from Annandale over her citizenship status.
The Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office decided last Wednesday (June 11) not to prosecute the 51-year-old man, according to court records, though no reason was explicitly provided.
