Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has signed an executive order requiring all cities and counties in the commonwealth to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“It’s just common sense that our law enforcement, our state and local law enforcement, are working with—instead of against—our federal authorities,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told The Daily Signal on Friday.
Miyares called the executive order, “Keeping Virginians Safe From Dangerous Criminal Illegal Immigrants,” a “sea change in Virginia.”
The order, which Youngkin signed Thursday, directs Virginia law enforcement and correction officers to assist federal authorities in immigration enforcement operations, and directs local governments to cooperate with ICE. The executive action also allows state and local law enforcement officers, who are “federally trained and certified” to carry out “specified immigration officer functions under ICE’s direction and oversight.”
Under President Donald Trump, border czar Tom Homan has asked state and local law enforcement to assist in the detention, and sometimes also the apprehension, of criminal illegal aliens residing in the country.
The issue in Virginia, according to Miyares, is that there has been a “rash of local sheriffs and elected leaders” who have directed local law enforcement “to not cooperate with federal authorities and ICE agents.”
Virginia is not a sanctuary state, but 51 counties and more than 40 towns or cities in the state have ranging degrees of sanctuary laws or policies, according to the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies.
The executive order Youngkin signed includes a directive to all local and regional jails in the commonwealth to “cooperation with ICE in all Enforcement and Removal Operations.”
When state and local authorities don’t adhere to ICE detainers, or don’t notify ICE of illegal alien arrests, but instead release criminal illegal aliens from jail back onto the streets, that places the local communities, federal agents, and the illegal immigrants themselves in danger, Miyares explained.
The dangers of local law enforcement not cooperating with ICE was made clear to Miyares, he says, last fall when he participated in a ride-along with ICE agents as they made multiple arrests of criminal illegal aliens. One of the illegal aliens ICE sought to arrest while Miyares was embedded with the agents was a known MS-13 gang member.
Agents knew when he usually left his home in the morning, but the illegal alien left late on the day of the intended arrest and came into view of ICE agents just as a school bus arrived in the same area to pick up a group of children, which “made our angle of apprehension much more difficult,” Miyares said.
The illegal alien ran from the ICE agents and was on the run in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., for four or five days before agents were able to apprehend him, Miyares said.
“People’s lives and property” were put in danger “because our local sheriffs wouldn’t cooperate,” Miyares lamented.
But it is “never too late to do the right thing,” the attorney general said when asked what his message would be to local leaders and sheriffs who have previously refused to fully cooperate with federal immigration laws. “Your first duty as an elected official is making sure your constituents, your citizens are safe,” Miyares continued. “These are individuals that are (A) here illegally and (B) have committed additional crime.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (right) and state Attorney General Jason Miyares (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The Youngkin administration will “look at any and all legal options” if some Virginia communities refuse to abide by the executive order, Miyares said. “I can tell you the governor has talked about tying funds that would go to local government to ensure that if you’re taking taxpayer dollars in Virginia you’re going to be cooperating with our federal authorities,” the attorney general said.
Miyares is the son of immigrants who fled to America from Cuba, and he says his family “did it the right way.”
“My mother came here as a legal green card holder. She had to apply, she had to go through the process,” Virginia’s top lawman said.
“We are a nation of laws,” Miyares said, “and that means that every time that you are deciding to allow somebody who’s broken the laws” to remain in the country, “you’re actually insulting the legal immigrants that have played by the rules and done it the right way.”
The four-page executive order is effective immediately.
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