In the midst of President Donald Trump's ongoing campaign against unauthorized immigration, Governor Glenn Youngkin directed Virginia's state and local law enforcement to assist federal officers with various operations. WMRA reporters Randi B. Hagi and Calvin Pynn teamed up to see how this is playing out on the ground. This is the first installment of a two-part report.
RANDI B. HAGI: At the end of February, the governor's office issued an executive order instructing the Virginia State Police and Department of Corrections to sign formal agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The agreements allow state troopers and corrections officers to be deputized to assist ICE in detainment and deportation.
The governor's order also requests that local jails and police and sheriff's departments confirm their cooperation with ICE, too.
CALVIN PYNN: I caught up with Governor Youngkin during a visit to Harrisonburg just one day after he issued the order. He claimed that there are hundreds of immigrants accused of violent crimes in Virginia who are awaiting deportation.
GLENN YOUNGKIN: …and that’s just in the state Department of Corrections, who have active detainer orders who are 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 and sent back to where they came from.
PYNN: Immigrants who have been charged or convicted with certain crimes have been ICE’s prime target following the Laken Riley Act, which President Trump signed into law in January. Those offenses could include theft, assaulting a police officer, and even DUI’s. The act is named after a Georgia nursing student who was killed in 2024 by a man from Venezuela who had entered the country illegally.
Gang activity, which Youngkin highlighted as a concern in the Shenandoah Valley, will also be a priority in the collaboration between state and federal law enforcement.
YOUNGKIN: The efforts that have been highlighted by the administration in the work with us, are violent criminals, gang members who are part of, now, terrorist organizations like MS-13 and TDA, and of course those that are already in the criminal justice system, that is the target.
HAGI: What does research show us about criminality and citizenship? A study funded by the National Institute of Justice analyzed arrest rates in Texas. That state tracks arrestees' immigration status more thoroughly than other states. It found [quote] "undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes."
However, you won't find that report on the Department of Justice website anymore. It has been preserved on the Wayback Machine internet archive, but as of late January, the web address now redirects browsers to the department's homepage. A notice there states that the DOJ is currently reviewing its websites in accordance with executive orders.
The Virginia State Police signed their agreement with ICE on February 27, in which they agree to shoulder the cost of paying state troopers to serve immigration functions. Troopers that are designated to work with ICE have to go through extra training before they are authorized to interrogate and arrest people on ICE's behalf.
Both the Virginia State Police and Department of Corrections turned down WMRA's interview requests. The DOC sent us a statement, saying they "will work swiftly and decisively to implement the directives" in the executive order.
So, what will this change mean for our local law enforcement agencies and jails? The consensus we heard was, 'not much.' Colonel Eric Young, the superintendent of Middle River Regional Jail in Verona, said they'll keep using the protocols they already have in place.
ERIC YOUNG: If an offender comes in to the facility and has an ICE detainer, you know, we manage that through our … jail management system, and when that individual has served their sentence or is released on bond, or whatever the release may be, then we make contact with ICE, and at that point, ICE comes and picks those individuals up. So that's not going to change in any way, shape, or form.
He said they don't deal with these detainers very often, though.
YOUNG: It's not something that we see regularly here in our area. I don't have numbers to give you, accurate numbers, but I can tell you it's a very small percentage. Probably 1% or 2%, if that … through a 12 month period. It's very minimal.
He's not aware of any jails in the state that refuse to comply with ICE.
YOUNG: There's several code sections that sort of mandate sheriffs, local jails, regional jails to do certain things, like 19.2-83.2, that we're to ascertain citizenship of an inmate. [Section] 53.1-218, it's the duty of the officer in charge to inquire as to citizenship and to notify the federal immigration officer of the commitment of aliens, so it's all right there. We're doing it all now.
In part two of this report, we'll share what we learned from other local agencies and an immigration attorney about their interactions with ICE – and what little we learned from the agency itself.
