Congress will soon scrutinize Fairfax County’s sanctuary policies at an April House Judiciary hearing titled “Fairfax County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies.” The need for that hearing is obvious.
On Feb. 23, Stephanie Minter was stabbed to death in Fredericksburg. The man accused of killing her, Abdul Jalloh, an illegal alien from Sierra Leone with dozens of prior arrests, had been released by local authorities despite requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take him into custody.
Minter’s death underscores the real-world consequences that can follow when local jurisdictions decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Unless Virginia leaders change course on policies that restrict how law enforcement agencies collaborate with ICE, similar failures will continue to put residents at risk.
On her first day in office, Governor Abigail Spanberger rescinded former Governor Glenn Youngkin’s order requiring Virginia State Police and encouraging local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE. Her administration has also suggested that local agencies should not honor ICE detainers unless officers provide a judicial warrant, which is above and beyond what the law requires.
These policies copy the approach taken in sanctuary jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, where local police and sheriffs may not cooperate with federal immigration authorities even in cases where an illegal alien has already been arrested or has prior criminal convictions.
Sanctuary policies are a significant problem for ICE. According to ICE records I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, between Oct. 2022 and Feb. 2025, sanctuary jurisdictions failed to honor ICE detainer notices more than 26,000 times. Nearly 1,700 of those ignored detainers were in Virginia. Fairfax County alone accounted for more than two-thirds of those cases.
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