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Gov. Glenn Youngkin directed state public safety agencies to enter into agreements allowing them to support federal immigration officials, in an executive order issued Thursday.
Under Section 287(g) agreements, local law enforcement and corrections staff are trained by federal authorities, and can then be deputized to perform specialized immigration enforcement functions, such as issuing immigration detainers and orders that begin deportation processes.
The order comes after the General Assembly passed a budget without language proposed by Youngkin that could have withheld funding from regional jails that don’t cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In the order, Youngkin directed the Virginia State Police to enter into a “Task Force Model” agreement with ICE, which would allow state troopers to “enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.”
In a statement, VSP said it was taking measures to comply with the order.
“Virginia State Police’s mission is to provide for a secure Commonwealth,” said VSP Superintendent Col. Matthew D. Hanley. “As will be the case here, we frequently partner with other agencies to support the Governor's initiatives on violent crime.”
VSP did not answer a question regarding how the order would change its operations in the immediate term.
Youngkin also directed the Virginia Department of Corrections to enter a “Jail Enforcement Model” agreement with ICE — which is “designed to identify and process removable immigrants who are incarcerated in state or local correctional facilities.”
The state’s public safety secretary was also instructed to contact the head of every local and regional jail in the commonwealth and “request a certification confirming their full cooperation with ICE in all Enforcement and Removal Operations.”
Youngkin acknowledged that VADOC was already informally cooperating with ICE, but “Section 287(g) agreements enable our state and local law enforcement agencies to take more proactive measures … and to address criminal immigration matters at the source.”
Last September, state Attorney General Jason Miyares said that local sheriffs already had the power to “cooperate with ICE with respect to inmates in their custody who are the subject of an ICE detainer by providing immigration officers prerelease notification of those inmates' scheduled releases.”
In a press release at the time, Miyares said: “Should an illegal immigrant be detained in a Virginia jail, there is nothing in law preventing our local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal agencies.”
Youngkin said in his order that nearly 950 people incarcerated in VADOC facilities have open immigration detainers, which “indicate that federal immigration authorities have flagged these individuals due to their involvement in serious criminal activities.” There were about 23,000 people incarcerated in VADOC facilities in January.
Christian Martinez Lemus, research and policy analyst with CASA, an advocacy group for immigrant and working-class Virginians, said federal immigration policy goes beyond pursuing violent criminals.
“Although the governor is describing crimes, they are going after every immigrant,” Martinez Lemus said in an interview Thursday.
Those models come from Section 287(g), a 1996 addition to the federal Immigration and Nationality Act giving ICE the authority to enter agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws.
Eighty-one agencies nationwide participate in the task force model, according to ICE.
No Virginia law enforcement agencies are currently listed on ICE’s list of participating or pending agencies for any type of delegated immigration enforcement.
The Prince William-Manassas Regional Jail had a memorandum of understanding with ICE between 2007 and 2020, when it did not renew the program.
VPM News reached out to a number of local governments and law enforcement agencies. In most cases, no response was sent by deadline.
An Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail representative said they couldn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, because “this is the first I have heard of any of this.”
Martinez Lemus, with CASA, said the order would cause fear in immigrant communities and take up law enforcement resources.
“By directing state law enforcement to collaborate with federal immigration authorities through 287g agreements, the governor has effectively resurrected a modern version of the Fugitive Slave Act,” he said Thursday. “This is definitely going to involve training and cost a lot of money to the Virginian taxpayer.”
