Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin on Thursday ordered the Virginia State Police and Department of Corrections “to support federal immigration enforcement efforts.”
Youngkin signed an executive order requiring the agencies to sign agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that “will create a State Police Task Force of federally deputized troopers to assist in the identification and apprehension of criminal illegal immigrants who pose a risk to public safety throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia,” the governor’s office said.
The executive order said it will serve “as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies to enforce limited immigration authority with ICE oversight during their routine police duties.”
“In February 2024, an Old Dominion University student was killed in a car crash by an illegal immigrant who previously had multiple run-ins with the law, having previously been ordered deported six years earlier,” the order read. “That month, an illegal immigrant sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Campbell County. In November 2024, a woman was attacked and raped by an illegal immigrant from Honduras while hiking along a trail in Herndon. Reports indicate that the man had 29 encounters with the police.”
The executive order, “Keeping Virginians Safe From Dangerous Illegal Immigrants,” said that 946 inmates in the Virginia Department of Corrections have an immigration detainer. Ninety percent are violent criminals, 40% are rapists or sexual assailants, and 20% are murderers.
A “Jail Enforcement Model” will “identify and process removable immigrants who are incarcerated in state or local correction facilities.” Virginia prisons’ cooperation with ICE will be “proactive,” the order said. It adds that it will “request” confirmation of full cooperation with ICE from jails run by counties.
Youngkin’s order also stated “a commitment to public safety demands that the Commonwealth recognize that the nexus between illegal immigration and dangerous criminal activity is real.”
The executive order said the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 created Section 287(g), which permits delegating “specified immigration officer functions” to federally-trained state and local law enforcement. An order from President Trump directs ICE to use such agreements to maximum effect.
President Donald Trump last week appointed Youngkin to co-chair the bipartisan Council of Governors.
Virginia Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Jamaican immigrant who is running to succeed the term-limited Youngkin, said in announcing the move that “we’ve seen too many tragic stories after dangerous criminals in this country illegally were put back on the streets, and this Executive Order will make sure we send them back to where they came from.”
