Governor Glenn Youngkin visited Harrisonburg last week to honor a local nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking. The day before, he signed an executive order directing state police to aid ICE deportation efforts. WMRA’s Calvin Pynn reports.
On Friday, Youngkin presented the "Spirit of Virginia" Award to New Creation VA, a Harrisonburg-based fair trade store whose mission is to counteract human trafficking. He attributed the issue, in part, to the Biden administration's immigration policies.
GLENN YOUNGKIN: Twenty-seven million victims, three million more in just the last five years, an open border for the last four years that has facilitated the trafficking of women and children to such a degree that we cannot even fully appreciate it.
That claim is in spite of the fact that Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, wrote in a 2024 report that approximately 27 million people around the world are currently being trafficked for labor and sex work.
Last week, Youngkin signed an executive order directing Virginia State Police and corrections officers across the commonwealth to cooperate with ICE in deportation efforts. Speaking with reporters after the ceremony, the governor said his focus is on violent criminals and gangs.
YOUNGKIN: We want to make sure that we, in fact, get those people off the streets, or if they are already in our criminal justice system, that they go back to where they came from as fast as we can send them there.
He said deportation efforts would start in Virginia's department of corrections.
YOUNGKIN: There's nearly a thousand people who are in our Department of Corrections who have active detainer orders who are here or in the criminal justice system because they murdered someone or committed a really horrific crime and there's nearly a thousand of them who should be picked up when they finish their sentence.
