Federal Judge Blocks New Virginia Limits on Existing Local Immigration Enforcement Agreements

Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Payne in Richmond temporarily blocked Virginia from enforcing key parts of a new state law that restricted local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, allowing existing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreements to continue for now.

The preliminary injunction bars the commonwealth from applying the challenged provisions against federal immigration officers, employees or agencies and from interfering with existing Section 287(g) agreements under federal immigration law.

Attorney General Jay Jones defended the General Assembly's authority to set statutory limits so resource-strapped localities are not diverted into federal enforcement roles. Immigration cooperation rules have been a flashpoint between state policymakers and localities that maintained ICE partnerships.

The order keeps those existing partnerships in place while the lawsuit proceeds.

Email the Richmond City Council:
Andrew Breton, andrew.breton@rva.gov,
Katherine Jordan, katherine.jordan@rva.gov,
Kenya Gibson, kenya.gibson@rva.gov,
Sarah Abubaker, sarah.abubaker@rva.gov,
Stephanie Lynch, stephanie.lynch@rva.gov,
Ellen Robertson, ellen.robertson@rva.gov,
Cynthia Newbille, cynthia.newbille@rva.gov,
Reva Trammell, reva.trammell@rva.gov,
Nicole Jones, nicole.jones@rva.gov,

Email the Richmond School Board:
Matthew Percival, mpercival@rvaschools.net,
Kathryn Ricard, kricard@rvaschools.net,
Ali Faruk, afaruk@rvaschools.net,
Wesley Hedgepeth, whedgepeth@rvaschools.net,
Stephanie Rizzi, srizzi@rvaschools.net,
Anne Holton, aholton@rvaschools.net,
Cheryl Burke, cburke2@rvaschools.net,
Emmett Jafari, ejafari@rvaschools.net,
Shavonda Fernandez, sdixon@rvaschools.net,