In an interview with the Virginia Mercury, Spanberger confirmed that if elected, she will rescind Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) Executive Order from February which directed state police and other local law enforcement officials to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding identifying and apprehending illegal aliens.
Under the executive order, the Virginia State Police (VSP) and Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) were directed to enter into “Section 287(g) partnerships” with ICE. Additionally, the “Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security” was directed to “contact every Director, Sheriff, or other official in charge of a local or regional jail in the Commonwealth of Virginia and request a certification confirming their full cooperation with ICE.”
While Spanberger acknowledged in her interview that the “immigration system is absolutely broken” in the United States, she described taking “local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies” from their regular duties to assist in immigration enforcement as a “misuse of those resources.”
“The idea that we would take local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies in amid all the things that they have to do, like community policing or staffing our jails or investigating real crimes, so that they can go and tear families apart… that is a misuse of those resources,” Spanberger told the outlet.
Spanberger continued to point out when people have “a criminal violation at the state level or at the federal level,” there is help from local law enforcement before the suspect is transferred to “federal custody,” adding that the “standard should be the same for immigration cases” as it is with other cases:
“They have to have a warrant to pick somebody up off the street, so they meet that same standard,” she said. “And they can easily go get that detention order signed by a judge or a magistrate, if they want that local support.”
Without those safeguards, Spanberger argued, local cooperation with ICE undermines community policing, creates constitutional concerns and strains already tight budgets. She pointed to her former district of Prince William County, which she said spent more than $1 million housing detainees under a prior partnership with federal immigration authorities.
Breitbart News’s Warner Todd Huston recently reported that as of “the end of July,” ICE had reportedly detained around 4,179 migrants in Virginia, though Youngkin’s “task force” reported roughly 3,564 arrests.
In response to Spanberger’s interview, Youngkin highlighted how while Spanberger “promises to turn Virginia into a sanctuary state,” Republican gubernatorial candidate and Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears “promises to keep dangerous criminals” off the streets.
“In her very first act as governor, @SpanbergerForVA promises to turn Virginia into a sanctuary state for dangerous illegal immigrants,” Youngkin wrote in a post on X. “@winwithwinsome promises to keep dangerous criminals off our streets. Could the choice be any more clear, Virginia? Your safety is on the ballot this November.”
“Illegals first. Virginians last,” Christian Martinez, the Western Regional and National Hispanic Press Secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) wrote in a post. “That’s @SpanbergerForVA’s dangerous agenda.”
“Democrat candidate for governor @SpanbergerForVA is proudly promising to make Virginia a sanctuary state for illegal criminals,” another person wrote. “This is the same level of radical as @ZohranKMamdani. Wake up, Virginia!!!”
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