1,670 detainers ignored: House report puts Fairfax's sanctuary machine on the record

Fairfax County officials have spent years insisting they don't run a sanctuary county. A House Judiciary Committee staff report released Oct. 20 lays out the numbers that say otherwise.

According to the report, from Chairman Jim Jordan's committee and Chairman Tom McClintock's immigration subcommittee, the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office declined 517 ICE detainers in 2023, 705 in 2024 and at least 448 in 2025. That comes to at least 1,670 people ICE asked to pick up who were released back into northern Virginia instead. The report says the sheriff's office admitted to committee staff that it does not notify ICE before a release, even though Virginia law expressly allows a jail to hand a detainee to ICE up to five days early.

The jail is only half of it. Committee staff say they reviewed more than 1,100 criminal cases and found more than 100 previously unreported non-citizens who benefited when Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano's office dropped or watered down charges. The report says that in most of the cases it reviewed, the offenders went on to commit more crimes, some of them violent and one allegedly a killing.

The committee asked Descano on Jan. 15 for the cases in which his office weighed immigration consequences under its own written policy. The report says he refused, and the committee issued a subpoena.

Both officials have defenses on paper. The sheriff demands a judicial warrant, which, the report notes, former Attorney General Jason Miyares testified is "legally impossible" to get for most of these cases. The county says it doesn't enforce civil immigration law but denies being a sanctuary. The committee calls its findings preliminary and says its review is ongoing. The full case list and the plea deals are covered in RVN's companion stories.

RVN has asked Descano's office for comment. The report's claims are drawn from records the committee says it holds, which have not been made public.

Source: "Fairfax County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies," interim staff report of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, released Oct. 20, 2026. Read the report (PDF).

Fairfax is an independent city in Northern Virginia.

Email Steve Descano at:

Steve Descano: stephen.descano@fairfaxcounty.gov

Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Fairfax, an independent city.