“A new Democrat governor is not going to stop the men and women of ICE,” Madison Sheahan, the ICE deputy director, recently told Fox News.
Sheahan was reacting to Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate for Virginia governor, who has vowed to rescind Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that requires state and local law enforcement to work with ICE. He signed that order in February.
In an interview about her policy plans, Spanberger told the Virginia Mercury newspaper she will rescind Youngkin’s order if elected governor in November.
Spanberger, a former congresswoman, previously represented the state’s 7th District. She is in a tight gubernatorial race against Winsome Earle-Sears (pictured at right), Virginia’s current lieutenant governor, who is trailing the Democrat by single digits in the polls.
If a future Governor Spanberger ends law enforcement cooperation with ICE, Sheahan said ICE agents will continue working like they do in cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. She was likely referring to those cities because their Democrat leaders refuse to cooperate with ICE.
“I think she's doing a disservice to the people of Virginia if she chooses not to work with ICE and enforce the immigration laws as written,” Sheahan commented. “But that's not going to deter us. We will continue to go after the worst of the worst in the state of Virginia."
Reacting to Spanberger’s plan, Earle-Sears has pointed out the “worst of the worst” includes the arrest and deportation of illegal alien Henrry Villatoro-Sanato (pictured below), a top MS-13 gang leader. The native of El Salvador, who was the gang’s top boss on the East Coast, was arrested in March at his home near Manassas.
"The No. 3 MS-13 was captured right here in Manassas, under [Spanberger's] nose, in her former neck of the woods," Earle-Sears said of the gang leader’s arrest.
For liberals such as Spanberger, arresting and deporting illegal aliens is viewed as cruel and unnecessary. For local authorities to cooperate with that action, especially under President Trump, is prohibited.
A common talking point for Democrats is to say cooperation with ICE takes the focus off local crime, but many "sanctuary" cities even refuse to honor a simple ICE detainer for an illegal alien arrested by local authorities for a criminal act.
“The idea that we would take local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies in amid all the things that they have to do, like community policing or staffing our jails or investigating real crimes, so that they can go and tear families apart … that is a misuse of those resources,” Spanberger told the Mercury.
Even though Earle-Sears is currently trailing Spanberger by an average of five points, she was trailing the Democrat by 12 points in a July poll of registered voters.
The current Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, won election in 2021 with a narrow 50%-48% victory over Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe.
