'Their business, not ours': Sheriff Kincaid's answer to 1,670 ignored detainers

The House Judiciary Committee's Oct. 20 report counts at least 1,670 ICE detainers declined by the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office from 2023 through 2025: 517, then 705, then at least 448. The report says the office admitted to committee staff that it doesn't even tell ICE when a release is coming.

Sheriff Stacey Kincaid has not publicly answered the new report as of publication. Her defense is on the record, though. In written testimony to Congress on May 14, she said:

"It is simply not the job of the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office to engage in federal immigration enforcement. ... We have no problem with ICE conducting its lawful business. But it is their business to conduct, not ours."

She told the subcommittee that ICE is notified of every undocumented person booked, and that ICE can get a judicial warrant, call to ask about release dates, track court dates, or take custody up to five days before release.

The report says that defense depends on a warrant that usually can't exist. Former Attorney General Jason Miyares told the same subcommittee a federal judicial warrant for a state crime is "legally impossible," adding, "they know this." The report also says the jail's practice is not to give ICE notice of pending releases, which is the step ICE needs in order to make the pickup Kincaid describes.

Kincaid has also pointed at the prosecutor's office. After Marvin Morales-Ortez was released and allegedly killed a man in Reston the next day, she wrote to Congress that "I have no say in the prosecution of any inmate." She has called the county's prosecution record "shameful." The report's position is that both offices share responsibility.

RVN has asked the Sheriff's Office for comment on the new report.

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