    [House Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                    FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA: THE DANGEROUS
                       CONSEQUENCES OF SANCTUARY POLICIES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                     SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY,
                            SECURITY, AND ENFORCEMENT

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION
                                   __________

                             THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2026
                                   __________

                               Serial No. 119-68
                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

                   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
                                     ______

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    63-756                     WASHINGTON : 2026

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                            JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

    DARRELL ISSA, California             JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                    Member
    TOM McCLINTOCK, California           JERROLD NADLER, New York
    THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    CHIP ROY, Texas                      HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
    SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin            Georgia
    BEN CLINE, Virginia                  TED LIEU, California
    LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
    JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey       J. LUIS CORREA, California
    TROY E. NEHLS, Texas                 MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
    BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming          LUCY McBATH, Georgia
    LAUREL M. LEE, Florida               DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   BECCA BALINT, Vermont
    RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina          JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
    KEVIN KILEY, California              SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
    BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina           DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
    MARK HARRIS, North Carolina          JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri       Vacancy
    DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
    BRANDON GILL, Texas
    MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington

                                     ------

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION INTEGRITY, SECURITY,
                                AND ENFORCEMENT

                       TOM McCLINTOCK, California, Chair

    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington,
    TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin                 Ranking Member
    CHIP ROY, Texas                      JERROLD NADLER, New York
    JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey            J. LUIS CORREA, California
    TROY NEHLS, Texas                    MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
    BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
    RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina          JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            ZOE LOFGREN, California
    BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina           STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Missouri            Vacant
    DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas                Vacant
    BRANDON GILL, Texas                  Vacant

                   CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
                    ARTHUR EWENCZYK, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                             Thursday, May 14, 2026

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chair of the Subcommittee on
      Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State
      of California..................................................     1
    The Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
      on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the
      State of Washington............................................     3
    The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
      from the State of Ohio.........................................     5
    The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
      the Judiciary from the State of Maryland.......................     7

                                   WITNESSES

    Sheriff Stacey A. Kincaid, Fairfax County Sheriff's Office
      Oral Testimony.................................................     9
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    12
    The Hon. Stephen Descano, Commonwealth's Attorney, Office of
      Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney
      Oral Testimony.................................................    15
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    17
    The Hon. Jason Miyares, Partner, Torridon Law PLLC
      Oral Testimony.................................................    19
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    21
    Jane Stoever, Professor, University of California, Irvine School
      of Law
      Oral Testimony.................................................    24
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    26
    David Bier, Director, Immigration Studies, Cato Institute
      Oral Testimony.................................................    41
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    43
    Sean Kennedy, President, Virginians for Safe Communities, Member
      of the Fairfax County Criminal Justice Advisory Board
      Oral Testimony.................................................    64
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    66
    Cheryl Minter, Mother of victim Stephanie Minter
      Oral Testimony.................................................   124
      Prepared Testimony.............................................   126

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
      Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement are listed
      below..........................................................   160

    Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, a Member of
      Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
      Enforcement Arizona, for the record
        An article entitled, ``Virginia murder suspect in bus stop
            stabbing had lengthy criminal history, multiple dropped
            charges,'' Feb. 27, 2026, Fox News
        An article entitled, `` `Completely failed Stephanie:' Family
            of woman killed in Fairfax County speaks out,'' Mar. 9,
            2026, 7News
        An article entitled, ``Illegal Alien With Lengthy Arrest
            Record Allegedly Butchers Woman At Virginia Bus Stop,''
            Feb. 27, 2026, Daily Caller
        An article entitled, ``The pathetic reason illegal migrant
            who `hacked mom to death' in lefty DC suburb was free--
            despite 30 arrests,'' Mar. 3, 2026, New York Post
        An article entitled, ``Grieving Virginia mother tells far-
            left prosecutor `do your job' after daughter stabbed to
            death,'' Mar. 12, 2026, Fox News
    Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking
      Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
      and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
        An article entitled, ``Seattle Welcoming City Policies Keep
            Immigrants Safe,'' May 14, 2026, South Seattle Emerald
        A political analysis entitled, ``Immigrants Cut Victimization
            Rates, Boost Crime Reporting,'' Aug. 26, 2025, Cato
            Institute
        An article entitled, ``Family says Virginia domestic violence
            victim didn't seek help due to immigration fears,'' Sept.
            10, 2025, NBC
        An article entitled, ``She Testified About Being Raped. Then
            ICE Showed Up,'' Apr. 6, 2026, The Atlantic

                                    APPENDIX

    Materials submitted by the Honorable Pramila Jayapal, Ranking
      Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,
      and Enforcement from the State of Washington, for the record
        A statement entitled, ``Data Matters: Fairfax County and
            National Data Support Local Policies Against Voluntary
            Cooperation with Ice,'' May 13, 2026, American Civil
            Liberties Union (ACLU)
        A statement from the UN Working Group on discrimination
            against women and girls, May 14, 2026
        A statement from the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence
            Action Alliance, May 14, 2026
        A joint statement from several universities, May 14, 2026
        A statement from Americans for Immigrant Justice, May 14,
            2026

                           FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA:
                THE DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES OF SANCTUARY POLICIES

                                  ----------

                             Thursday, May 14, 2026

                            House of Representatives

                Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security,

                                and Enforcement

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in Room
    2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Tom McClintock
    [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives McClintock, Jordan, Biggs,
    Tiffany, Van Drew, Nehls, Fry, Grothman, Knott, Onder, Schmidt,
    Gill, Jordan, Jayapal, Raskin, Nadler, Scanlon, and Ross.
        Also present: Representative Cline.
        Mr. McClintock. [Presiding.] The Subcommittee will come to
    order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
    recess at any time.
        I want to welcome all of you here today, and particularly
    members of the public who have come to watch this hearing, but
    please know the public is not allowed to disrupt the Committee
    proceedings. If you disrupt today's proceedings, the Capitol
    Police will have to remove you from the room, and you may be
    subject to prosecution.
        Without objection, Mr. Cline will be permitted to
    participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning
    the witnesses, if a Member yields him the time for that
    purpose.
        We will now begin with opening statements.
        This Subcommittee has become increasingly concerned with
    so-called sanctuary policies in which local or State law
    enforcement simply refuses to transfer illegal aliens who are
    already in their custody to Federal authorities for
    deportation, or at the very least, notify Federal authorities
    about a criminal's release. Instead, these jurisdictions
    release these criminals back into our communities, often with
    devastating consequences.
        The doctrine of nullification, first propounded by John C.
    Calhoun, holds that local or State governments may simply
    ignore Federal laws that they disagree with. This doctrine,
    fatal to a Federal republic, was thought to have died with the
    Confederacy. These nullification or sanctuary jurisdictions now
    extend to 11 States, coincidentally, the same number as the old
    Confederacy.
        Fairfax County has become an epicenter of this movement.
    Its Commonwealth's Attorney boasted that quote,

            He will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid
            immigration consequences.

    He wrote, quote,

            If two people commit the same crime, but only one's punishment
            includes deportation, that's a perversion of justice.

        Thus, an illegal alien would be charged with a lesser crime
    than an American citizen to protect that illegal alien from
    deportation. That is the true perversion of equal justice under
    law and has now prompted an investigation by the Civil Rights
    Division of the Department of Justice.
        Fairfax County's sheriff takes a similar position, that her
    office, quote,

            Will not detain an individual based on an informal request or
            detainer.

    Instead of safely allowing ICE to return that criminal to his
    own country, as Federal law requires, she prefers to release
    him back onto her community's streets.
        Ironically, both claim this is to foster trust between
    residents and law enforcement, which begs the obvious question,
    can residents trust law enforcement to protect them and their
    families?
        A long list of violent crimes perpetrated by criminal
    illegal aliens that these officials had in their custody and
    refused to prosecute and refused to remove from their
    communities answers this question with poignancy.
        The most recent case is the tragic and entirely preventable
    murder of Stephanie Minter, the young lady stabbed to death as
    she waited for a bus. Her accused murder is Abdul Jalloh,
    illegally present in the United States. Since 2022, Jalloh's
    criminal history has included trespass, disorderly conduct,
    drug possession, theft, larceny, and repeated arrests for
    malicious wounding.
        Between January 2023 and February 2026, he had been
    arrested at least 18 times. The Commonwealth's Attorney Descano
    dismissed almost all these charges. At least once, Sheriff
    Kincaid, instead of informing ICE that he was in custody, so
    that he could be deported, and despite a detainer request from
    DHS to do so, deliberately released him back onto Fairfax
    County streets.
        Last year, the Fairfax County Police Department became so
    alarmed at these decisions that they took the extraordinary
    step of warning Descano that Jalloh had, quote, ``stabbed
    multiple people, sexually assaulted at least one woman, and
    committed numerous other criminal offenses.''
        The police then issued this grim prophecy, ``It is not a
    question of if, but rather, when he will maliciously wound, or
    worse, again.''
        Well, the ``when'' came on February 23rd. That is the day
    this monster is accused of hacking Stephanie Minter to death.
    She was 41 years old. She leaves behind a grieving family.
        Now, Sheriff Kincaid says she doesn't have the budget to
    call ICE to pick up such criminals before she releases them
    back onto the streets. Well, that begs the question, how much
    does a phone call to ICE cost, and what was the cost to the
    Minter family of not making that call?
        Nor is this an isolated incident. There's a growing list of
    other criminal illegal aliens who these authorities had in
    custody and released back onto the streets, instead of making a
    simple phone call to ICE to pick this person up. It includes
    illegal aliens who had their charges reduced, or even dropped
    altogether, despite crimes ranging from child sex offenses to
    murder.
        Of the seven homicides in Fairfax County last year, three
    were committed by illegal aliens who could have been deported
    before they committed these crimes. Mr. Descano's empty claim
    to be the safest city of its size in the country rings hollow
    against this reality.
        Just as Stephanie Minter's murder wasn't an isolated event
    in Fairfax County, neither is Fairfax County an isolated
    example in our country. This utter dereliction of duty is
    rampant across jurisdictions that Democrats control, including
    my State of California, where the Tulare sheriff recently
    testified that fully half of the crimes he is dealing with
    involve illegal aliens. Yet, State law forbids him from
    cooperating with ICE because the Democrats don't want to
    enforce our immigration laws even against criminals in custody.
        To most Americans, these policies seem reckless, dangerous,
    crazy, wanton, and cruel. Today, this Subcommittee seeks to
    understand how elected officials entrusted with the sacred
    responsibility to protect innocent and law-abiding residents
    would deliberately act in this manner.
        We will soon hear their rationale. We will hear from
    witnesses the Democrats have chosen in support of these
    policies, and we will also hear from the former Attorney
    General of Virginia and the President of Virginians for Safe
    Communities who take a very different view.
        Finally, we will hear from Stephanie's mother, who has
    bravely come here today to provide a victim's statement of the
    toll these policies have taken on her family and who offers a
    grim warning to all Americans of what could happen to them at
    any time where these dangerous policies are practiced.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I now
    yield to the Ranking Member for her opening statement.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all
    our witnesses for being here today.
        I want to start by offering my deepest condolences to you,
    Ms. Minter. As a mother myself, I just cannot imagine the pain
    that you are experiencing in losing your daughter far, far, far
    too soon. I'm sorry for your loss.
        I also understand that we are joined by people from the
    Fairfax community today, and I want to welcome you. If you are
    willing, would you please stand up if you are from Fairfax
    County? Wow, a lot of you.
        Please remain standing if you support immigrants and
    support policies that make sure that everyone feels safe in
    calling 911.
        I want to note for the record that everyone has remained
    standing, and it looks to be a crowd of over 50 people. Thank
    you so much for being here. You may be seated.
        This hearing is, unfortunately, another in a series of
    hearings that the Majority has held that consistently attack
    trust policies that have upheld the necessary and important
    division between the enforcement of Federal civil immigration
    law and the enforcement of local criminal laws. This division
    has proven over and over again in documented research to be
    essential in keeping all communities safe and ensuring that
    people come forward to report crimes.
        Immigration enforcement is a Federal responsibility, and
    last year, Republicans gave the Department of Homeland Security
    over $170 billion in their Big Bad Betrayal Bill to meet the
    arbitrary immigrant arrest quotas of Stephen Miller and to
    carry out Donald Trump's cruel mass deportation agenda.
        Using this funding, ICE doubled in size; DHS officers
    killed two U.S. citizens in cold blood in Minnesota; beat and
    detained countless U.S. citizens for exercising their First
    Amendment rights and broke down doors of U.S. citizens without
    a warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
        We know of at least one U.S. citizen who has been arrested
    by ICE three times, despite repeatedly informing agents that he
    is a U.S. citizen. Another 18-year-old U.S. citizen with
    terminal cancer spent the last weeks of his life begging ICE to
    release his parents, so that he could see them before he died.
    They reunited one day before he died. That is just what they
    have done to Americans.
        ICE is also subjecting hundreds of parents and children to
    months in immigration prisons, conducted senseless deportations
    of military veterans, separated families, massively increased
    immigration detention, resulting in a record 48 deaths in ICE
    detention just since President Trump took office.
        A recent political analysis revealed that judges have ruled
    in at least 10,000 cases that detention was illegal with no due
    process, no opportunity for detainees to plead their cases. The
    10,000 people, including a nursing mother who was separated
    from her one-year-old child, despite active legal refugee
    status, and a five-year-old boy detained by ICE on his way home
    from school.
        More than 425 judges have heard cases and reached the same
    conclusions about the illegality of Donald Trump's mass
    detention policies, including, by the way, a majority of Trump-
    appointed judges. Three Circuit Courts have also now ruled the
    policy illegal.
        The impact of these illegal policies is not just being felt
    by immigrants; it is ripping apart entire communities across
    the country, creating fear and terror, and also, negatively
    impacting opportunities for all Americans.
        A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research
    just concluded that Trump's immigration raids are now even
    weighing on the labor market, leading to fewer jobs for U.S.-
    born men without a college degree.
        Despite all this, Republicans have refused to stop these
    illegal, unconstitutional, and cruel policies. They have
    refused to address the fact that, while their anti-immigrant
    strategies may have worked before, they don't work anymore.
    Today, more than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's
    immigration policies.
        Americans want Trump and Republicans to focus on lowering
    their gas prices, lowering their grocery costs. They want
    Republicans to stop giving tax breaks to billionaires, while
    stripping healthcare from tens of millions of Americans.
        Donald Trump said it himself just a few days ago. In his
    own words, Trump said, quote, ``I don't think about the
    financial situation of Americans.'' Really? That is exactly why
    Republicans are now planning to give ICE and Border Patrol an
    additional $70 billion with no oversight or accountability, and
    yet, having a hearing this morning to complain that Fairfax
    County will not do ICE's job for them. Give me a break.
        DHS has plenty of money to hire all the new immigration
    enforcement agents they want. They don't need to commandeer the
    local police officers who are hard at work maintaining
    Fairfax's status as the safest county of its size in the United
    States.
        In one of the great ironies, here we are in the Immigration
    Subcommittee having a hearing about the prosecutorial decisions
    of a county attorney and the jail policies of a county sheriff.
    Whatever happened to the Republican Party that believed in
    local government?
        There are many reasons that you will hear that States and
    localities choose not to or are unable to conduct immigration
    enforcement on behalf of the Federal Government. Numerous court
    orders have declared immigration detainers unlawful violations
    of the Fourth Amendment, and State and local officials don't
    want to spend huge amounts of money on court cases. State
    constitutions often contain prohibitions, and local police
    departments want to prioritize their already scarce resources
    to encourage the trust of people to come forward and report
    crimes without worrying about their own immigration status.
        The Major Cities Chiefs Association has repeatedly
    reaffirmed that cooperation with the immigrant community is
    essential to solve crime and prevent further criminal activity
    within the entire community, including ensuring protections for
    victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
        In 2019, my home State of Washington passed the bipartisan
    Keep Washington Working Act for all these reasons, as have many
    States across the country. Courts have ruled multiple times
    that States have the right to enact laws like the Keep
    Washington Working Act. These laws do allow information sharing
    with the Federal Government, when necessary for an ongoing
    criminal investigation or pursuant to a court order or judicial
    warrant.
        This Committee should be holding hearings on the
    unconstitutionality of this administration's policies, on the
    killing of American citizens by ICE and CBP, but instead, we
    are doing yet another hearing designed to further this
    Administration's anti-immigrant agenda and distract people from
    the real issues at hand. The American people deserve better.
        I look forward to hearing from all our witnesses today, and
    I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. I now recognize the Chair of the
    Full Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jordan, for his opening
    statement.
        Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        First, they let in 10 million illegal migrants during the
    Biden Administration.
        Second, create sanctuary jurisdictions, which makes it
    tough to remove those illegal migrants, even when they commit
    another crime.
        Third, the Democrats say, ``We're not going to fund the
    guys who do the removing. We're not going to fund ICE.'' They
    shut down the government for 70-some days.
        Understand this: Sanctuary jurisdiction policy in simple
    terms is politicians tell local law enforcement, ``Don't work
    with Federal law enforcement when it comes to enforcing Federal
    law.''
        That is the situation in 18 States, 11 cities--actually,
    the other way around 18 cities, 11 States, three counties, and
    the District of Columbia. Because those are big cities, big
    States, that is almost a third of the population lives in a
    jurisdiction where, again, local law enforcement is not allowed
    to work with Federal law enforcement to enforce Federal law.
        Let in 10 million; create sanctuary jurisdictions, so it is
    tough to remove them, even when they commit a crime; defund
    ICE. Mr. Descano takes it even a step further. He takes it a
    step further and says, ``I'm not even going to prosecute the
    guys who do terrible things. I'm not going to prosecute them.
    We're not going to honor detainers. We're going to let them out
    on the street.''
        Of course, what happens when you do that? Ms. Minter is
    going to talk about that in a few minutes. That's what happens.
        Take the example and take another example. Marvin Morales-
    Ortez had this long rap sheet, but on September 12, 2025, he is
    arrested for malicious assault and brandishing a gun. Mr.
    Descano says, ``We're not going to prosecute this guy.''
    Sheriff Kincaid says, ``We're not going to honor the
    detainer.'' They release him on December 16, 2025.
        What happens on December 17, 2025? He kills someone. That's
    the consequences of this dumb, stupid, and crazy policy.
        Again, Ms. Minter is going to talk about Stephanie Minter.
    The Chair talked about Abdul Jalloh, who had these 40 past
    charges, had all kinds of things. This guy had been arrested
    and charged with multiple crimes, malicious wounding, stealing
    property, larceny, trespass, disorderly conduct, malicious
    wounding, and a hundred involvements with the local police. As
    the Chair pointed out, the local law enforcement told Mr.
    Descano's office, ``If you let this guy out, he's going to do
    something bad. It's going to be bad.'' Sure enough, they were
    right, and he stabbed and killed someone. That's the
    consequences.
        Now, here's the craziest part of all. Here's the craziest
    part of all, and the Chair mentioned this. Mr. Descano told us
    he was going to do it. He told us he was going to do this, the
    statement I think the Chair read: ``Mr. Descano's office will
    take immigration consequences into account when making charging
    and plea decisions.'' This is unbelievable.
        I want to thank the Chair. The Democrats can say all they
    want, ``Well, why are we having another hearing?'' We are
    having a hearing on this because this is the dumbest thing we
    have ever heard.
        I want to thank the Chair for this hearing, and I want to
    thank him for the legislation that he sponsored, that this
    Committee has already passed, the Sanctuary Jurisdiction
    Shutdown Act of 2026. Hopefully, that is going to be passed in
    the Full House soon. Love to get that into law, so we can stop
    what is going on in Fairfax County.
        With that, I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking
    Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Raskin, for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
        Welcome to all our witnesses. I would especially like to
    thank Ms. Minter for coming today. There's no greater pain than
    the pain of losing your child. I thank you for having the
    strength and the courage to speak publicly and to appear before
    us about all these matters today.
        I also want to thank the busy public officials from
    Virginia, Sheriff Kincaid and Commonwealth's Attorney Descano.
    We know how busy your schedules are, and we thank you for
    coming to be part of this process.
        I have family in Virginia. Not everybody in my family is in
    Maryland. I once spent a summer in Richmond, Virginia, and I
    feel somehow like I'm back in Virginia with all these great
    Virginians here.
        We are on a mission of analyzing Virginia law and public
    policy today. This hearing would probably be better taking
    place in Richmond before the General Assembly, because we are
    doing a deep dive into the prosecutorial and jail policy
    decisions of one county, Fairfax County, which was recently
    ranked, I noted, by the Major Cities Chiefs Association as the
    safest county of its size in the entire United States of
    America. Its people, its elected officials, certainly do not
    deserve the contempt and the derision of this Committee.
        If we were going to superintend and scrutinize the actions
    taking place within the government of Virginia, perhaps we
    should be looking at the recent decision by the Virginia State
    Supreme Court to overturn the expressed will of the people of
    Virginia in redistricting their congressional districts. That
    investigation into an episode of extreme judicial activism
    might not suit the ideological purposes of the Majority quite
    so much.
        The Ranking Member has done an excellent job of providing
    an overview of the problems and limitations with the particular
    conception of this hearing. What we have on one side is a
    massively funded Federal bureaucracy, which just got $175
    billion last year, accomplished by slashing funds for Medicaid,
    children's health insurance, rural hospitals, and so on. DHS
    now has a quarter of a million employees and a budget larger
    than that of 150 countries on Earth. It has over 80,000 sworn
    officers, more than the number of police officers, check this
    out in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston,
    Washington, DC, Las Vegas, and Dallas combined.
        Yet, despite this massive bureaucracy and this awesome
    budget, the Administration is trying to blame the problems in
    immigration law and policy, over which the people of Fairfax
    County have no control, other than as citizens voting for
    Representatives in Congress, trying to blame these local
    jurisdictions, like the sheriff's office, whose annual budget
    is not $175 billion, but if the internet is correct I just
    looked it up is $85 million, which is much less than 1,000th of
    the Homeland Security budget.
        Yet, the Federal Government or Congress, rather than
    actually engaging in the process of studying and passing
    comprehensive immigration reform, prefers to bully and
    scapegoat local jurisdictions which are trying to deal with the
    failures of Federal policy.
        Look, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have a
    job to do and they should do it, and they should do it without
    violating the law. They should do it without violating the
    Constitution. They should do it without killing U.S. citizens,
    like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They have a job to do, and the
    government of Fairfax County has a job to do. These public
    officials have the job of enforcing the criminal laws of
    Virginia, as chosen by the people of Virginia within all the
    constraints of State and Federal law.
        Now, as I understand it and this is what I'm interested in,
    because I'm not familiar with what is taking place in Fairfax
    County, or in Virginia. As I understand it, ICE can come and
    pick up undocumented prisoners for a period of days or weeks
    before they are discharged.
        This has happened before, and the local and State
    Government, contrary to what we just heard, cooperates fully
    with the Federal Government in these cases. The idea that they
    don't cooperate is just wrong.
        ICE can come and pick them up before their point of
    discharge. As I understand it and I want to hear more about
    this they can pick them up at the point of discharge.
        Fairfax County, as I understand it, takes the position it
    cannot hold prisoners beyond the length and duration of their
    lawful sentence. I want to hear about that.
        I'm curious, why can ICE not pick up with its massive
    resources why can they not pick up the prisoners while they are
    still being held, or right before they are about to be
    released, or at the point of discharge? I don't really
    understand that.
        Then, again, I understand everybody is eager to beat up on
    Fairfax County for some reason, but in terms of the specific
    terrible case we are going to talk about today, we are going to
    hear about this Abdul Jalloh, the Sierra Leone national who is
    accused of brutally murdering Ms. Minter's daughter Stephanie.
        He was actually in ICE custody from 2018-2019, during the
    first Trump Administration, before they released him back into
    the public, as I understand it. I want to get to the bottom of
    that report. Why was he not removed back to Sierra Leone when
    the Trump Administration held him in 2018 and 2019? That is a
    critical question that I have in terms of trying to define
    responsibility, if all this is just a blame game that we are
    engaged in.
        It would be far more meaningful for us to be talking about
    comprehensive immigration reform. That is what Americans and
    Virginians are looking to Congress for not to be scrutinizing
    and demonizing particular cities or counties around the
    country, which does not strike me as a very productive
    exercise.
        Nonetheless, I'm delighted to hear from all our witnesses
    here, and I yield back to you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Without objection, all other
    opening statements will be included in the record. We will now
    hear from today's witnesses.
        We have with us today Ms. Cheryl Minter. She is a lifelong
    Virginia resident. She is the mother of Stephanie Minter, the
    young woman who was victimized by these sanctuary policies.
        We have with us the Hon. Stacey Kincaid, who serves as
    Sheriff for Fairfax County, Virginia. She has 35 years of
    experience working for the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office. A
    graduate of Langley High School in McLean, Virginia, Sheriff
    Kincaid received her bachelor's degree in political science and
    criminal justice from the Frostburg State University in 1987.
        We have Hon. Stephen Descano, who serves as the
    Commonwealth's Attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia. He has
    served in this role since January 2020. Mr. Descano earned his
    undergraduate degree from West Point and his JD from Temple
    University.
        Mr. Sean Kennedy is President of Virginians for Safe
    Communities, a public safety and victims' right advocacy
    nonprofit, and sits on the Fairfax County Criminal Justice
    Advisory Board as an appointee of the Fairfax County Board of
    Supervisors. He is a graduate of the University of California
    at Berkeley and earned a master's degree in history from the
    University of Cambridge.
        Professor Jane Stoever is a Professor at the University of
    California, Irvine School of Law, where she directs the
    Domestic Violence Clinic and the UCI Initiative to End Family
    Violence. Professor Stoever earned a bachelor's degree in
    English from the University of Kansas in 2000. She completed
    her JD at Harvard in 2003 and earned an LLM from Georgetown
    University in 2008.
        Mr. David Bier is the Director of Immigration Studies at
    the Cato Institute. He has a BA in political science from Grove
    City College in Pennsylvania.
        We have with us Hon. Jason Miyares, who served as Virginia
    Attorney General from 2021-2025. He previously served in the
    House of Delegates. He earned a bachelor's degree in business
    administration from James Madison University in 1998 and earned
    his JD from the College of William and Mary in 2005.
        I want to welcome all of today's witnesses, thank them for
    appearing, and we'll begin by swearing you in. Would you please
    rise and raise your hand?
        Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
    testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
    of your knowledge and information and belief, so help you God?
        Let the record reflect the witnesses have answered in the
    affirmative.
        Thank you, and you may be seated.
        We note that your written testimony will be entered into
    the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we will ask that you
    to summarize your testimony in five minutes.
        We will begin with Sheriff Kincaid.

                 STATEMENT OF SHERIFF STACEY A. KINCAID

        Sheriff Kincaid. Good morning. Chair McClintock, Ranking
    Member Jayapal, and the distinguished Members of the
    Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before
    you today.
        My name is Stacey Ann Kincaid, and I am the Sheriff of
    Fairfax County, Virginia. I was sworn in as a Deputy Sheriff in
    1987 and I worked my way through the ranks of my agency,
    serving in every division with distinction.
        After achieving the rank of captain, I ran for sheriff in
    2013 and have since been reelected three times with
    overwhelming majorities. As sheriff, it's been an honor to
    serve Fairfax County.
        The safety and security of Fairfax County have been my
    absolute priority for the past 38 years. I entered law
    enforcement to save to serve my community and to help protect
    the vulnerable. I believe all those that commit crimes should
    be held accountable, and I sympathize with all victims of
    crimes.
        I am proud of the role my agency plays in the Fairfax
    County criminal justice system by ensuring the safe and orderly
    administration of justice. Simply put, the justice system comes
    to a halt without the Fairfax County's Sheriff's Office.
        We are tasked with serving every document issued by our
    court system, including protective orders and subpoenas. We are
    responsible for providing security to our courthouse and
    ensuring the safety of hundreds of thousands of courthouse
    visitors every year, including judges, victims, and witnesses.
        We operate a secure and humane adult detention center, and
    we hold certifications from the American Correctional
    Association, the Virginia Law Enforcement Professional
    Standards Commission, the Virginia Department of Corrections,
    and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care
    (NCCHC).
        In addition to our accreditation, I am proud of the
    groundbreak-
    ing, nationally recognized programs that run daily in my jail.
    These efforts are critical to reducing recidivism and making
    our community safer.
        The functions of my agency are carried out daily to ensure
    the safe and orderly administration of justice in Fairfax
    County. My agency is not staffed for, budgeted for, or mandated
    to perform the duties of the Federal Government. My operating
    budget is approved by State and local government and is
    allotted specifically to carry out State and local mandated
    functions maintaining a safe and secure detention center,
    serving civil process, and ensuring the safety of the
    courthouse. It is simply not the job of the Fairfax County
    Sheriff's Office to engage in Federal immigration enforcement.
        Despite this, we work with ICE in significant ways. We
    treat them like every other law enforcement agency we interact
    with. They are allowed into our facility at any time. They are
    notified of every undocumented immigrant booked into our jail
    and they know their location. If there is an individual they
    want to take custody of, they can do so by obtaining a judicial
    warrant, calling to ask when the individual will be released,
    tracking the individual's court date, or taking custody of the
    individual up to five days prior to their release.
        When ICE does call, we even coordinate high-risk transfers
    with ICE to ensure their safety. We have no problem with ICE
    conducting its lawful business, but it is their business to
    conduct, not ours.
        Fairfax County is one of the top 50 most diverse counties
    in the entire Nation. Over 30 percent of Fairfax County's
    population is foreign-born, and over 40 percent speaks a
    language other than English at home. I am the sheriff for each
    one of these residents of Fairfax County, no matter their
    national origin, native language, and citizenship status.
        Ensuring trust between the community and my agency is a key
    component of effective law enforcement. To encourage all
    victims to put their faith in law enforcement and report
    crimes, a clear separation between local law enforcement and
    Federal immigration authorities is of vital importance. Local
    law enforcement must offer a safe place for victims and
    witnesses to cooperate without fear of consequences. This is
    the only way to hold violators accountable of the law.
        Any violent crime or crime against children is a tragedy.
    Unfortunately, we live in a time when such tragedies are used
    for political gain. It is easy to point fingers at a time of
    sadness and crisis, and to look for blame for a terrible
    outcome.
        Even when everyone in the criminal justice system does
    their job, terrible people will do terrible things. We are
    doing our job by following the law and will continue to do so.
    Hopefully, the other agencies involved will do their jobs as
    well.
        I look forward to continuing this conversation with anyone
    who wishes to find real solution devoid of politics.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Sheriff Kincaid follows:]

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        Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Descano?

                 STATEMENT OF THE HON. STEPHEN DESCANO

        Mr. Descano. Chair McClintock, Ranking Member Jayapal,
    Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, and the distinguished
    Members of this Subcommittee, as a West Point graduate, Federal
    prosecutor, and now the Commonwealth's Attorney for Fairfax
    County, Virginia, I have devoted my life to public service and
    public safety.
        I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and
    I was inspired by West Point's credo of providing a lifetime of
    selfless service to the Nation.
        I was first elected as Commonwealth's Attorney in 2019 on a
    promise to adopt smart-on-crime policies that prioritized the
    prosecution of violent crime. I'm proud of what we have
    accomplished. Fairfax County is one of the safety large
    communities anywhere in the country.
        The public safety of Fairfax County motivates all my work.
    Our office has successfully prosecuted thousands of cases,
    including high-profile murders, sexual assaults, and other
    serious offenses. We've worked with our law enforcement
    partners to more effectively prosecute gun crimes; we expanded
    a diversion program for struggling veterans; and we spearheaded
    bipartisan, statewide reforms to better protect child victims
    and witnesses, in partnership with the Republican Governor.
        Even in safe communities, though, crime does happen, like
    the tragic murder of Stephanie Minter, whose mother Cheryl is
    here today.
        Ms. Minter, I am deeply sorry for your loss. I say that not
    only as a prosecutor, but as a parent of a daughter. I am sorry
    for what you are having to endure. I promise that my office is
    doing everything we can to prosecute the man responsible.
        I've been asked to testify today about my office's
    policies. I welcome any conversation about how to reduce and
    prevent violence. Unfortunately, I expect some will, instead,
    promote a false narrative that gets us no closer to real
    solutions that Americans deserve.
        Let me be absolutely clear. My office does not provide
    sanctuary or safe harbor to undocumented immigrants. In fact,
    we routinely prosecute immigrants who commit crimes and we will
    continue to do so.
        Our approach to prosecution of crime has helped make
    Fairfax County one of the safest jurisdictions of its size in
    the country. Last year, we had far fewer homicides than in
    almost any other major jurisdiction in the United States,
    including in States that many Members of this Subcommittee
    represent.
        Serious violent crime in Fairfax County is also lower than
    that of most other large jurisdictions, and Fairfax residents
    know it's safe. A Washington Post poll found that 94 percent of
    Northern Virginia residents reported feeling safe from crime in
    their neighborhood. The citizens of Fairfax County have weighed
    in by reelecting me with 77 percent of the vote.
        My office also works with our Federal partners to prosecute
    crimes, and like many State and local prosecutors, my office
    has a policy of not assisting ICE with Federal civil
    immigration enforcement. We do not have the budget or personnel
    to enforce Federal civil immigration law, and it is simply not
    our job.
        We handle 15,000 criminal cases each year, which are 52
    full-time attorneys and a limited budget. Our policy of not
    diverting our resources to Federal immigration enforcement also
    makes our community safer. Three in 10 residents in Fairfax
    County are immigrants. When crimes occur, we need victims and
    witnesses, including members of our immigrant communities, to
    report those crimes and come to court to testify. If victims
    and witnesses believe my office will report them or their
    neighbors to ICE, they will not trust us and they will not
    provide the testimony we need to obtain convictions and get
    justice.
        It is justice that my office is now seeking by prosecuting
    the defendant Abdul Jalloh in the tragic murder of Stephanie
    Minter. The system failed Ms. Minter, and we should all look
    for ways we can prevent tragedies like this in the future. That
    starts with understanding the facts.
        The defendant was well-known by ICE as early as 2018, when
    ICE held him in custody for nearly two years during the first
    Trump Administration, only to release him into the community.
    After that, my office worked closely with law enforcement to
    prosecute him and obtain convictions for his crime wherever
    possible, and despite challenges in those cases.
        We are fully committed to holding the defendant accountable
    in this case. As a local prosecutor, I will continue to focus
    on my job prosecuting defendants who commit crimes in Fairfax
    County. In carrying out that role, my office makes case
    decisions based on the law, the evidence in the case, the
    interests of the victim, and of service of seeking justice and
    keeping our community safe.
        Thank you for having me, and I welcome your questions.
        [The prepared statement of the Hon. Descano follows:]

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        Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. We will next
    hear from the former Attorney General of the State of Virginia,
    Hon. Jason Miyares.

                  STATEMENT OF THE HON. JASON MIYARES

        Mr. Miyares. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, and the Members of
    the Subcommittee, before I say anything else, I want to
    acknowledge the woman seated with us today, Ms. Cheryl Minter,
    the mother of Stephanie. She has agreed to share her story with
    this Committee, and there is no one braver in this room. I will
    let her speak about what she has lost, but I want to give you
    is the context, because what happened to Stephanie did not have
    to happen in this vacuum.
        Now, I come to the immigration issue personally. My mother
    fled communist Cuba literally penniless and homeless, and not
    knowing where her next meal was going to come from. She came to
    this country legally, stood in line, filled out the forms, and
    did everything the right way because she believed in the rule
    of law and the promise of America. She left behind everything
    because she knew she wanted to come here the right way. That's
    what legal immigration looks like. I'm the son of a legal
    immigrant; I believe in immigration deeply.
        What I do not believe in, what I cannot accept, is a system
    that extends preferential treatment to those who break our laws
    at the direct expense of the American citizens whose laws are
    supposed to protect. In Fairfax County, Virginia, that is
    precisely what happened not once, not twice, repeatedly.
        Cheryl will tell you about Stephanie. The Members of this
    Committee, I want you to understand that Stephanie Minter is
    not an isolated tragedy. She is the most recent and visible
    name in a documented and ongoing pattern of preventable crimes,
    a pattern with a single common cause: The sanctuary policies of
    Fairfax County.
        In December 2025, a man was shot and killed inside his own
    home in Reston, one day after Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez, a
    criminal illegal alien from El Salvador, was released from
    jail, despite an active ICE detainer. He had prior arrests for
    aggravated assault of a police officer. Fairfax refused to hold
    him. He killed a man the very next day. A single phone call
    from Fairfax to ICE would have saved this man's life.
        In November 2024, a woman was raped on a hiking trail in
    Herndon, Virginia, just days after her attacker was released
    from jail following a felony assault charge reduction made
    without ever consulting the police. The ICE detainer was
    ignored. She became the next victim.
        A four-year-old girl was nearly abducted in the middle of
    the night by an illegal alien who broke into her bedroom.
    Charges were reduced progressively over 18 months down to a
    misdemeanor, then dropped entirely.
        In July 2024, two illegal aliens stamped a stabbed a man to
    death at a park in Oakton. ICE had lodged multiple detainers on
    one of the suspects that Fairfax County had refused to honor.
    He was released back to the community. Then, he killed.
        In the last several weeks, girls as young as 13 were groped
    repeatedly in the hallways of a Fairfax County high school by
    an illegal alien enrolled as a student at age 19. ICE asked
    that he be held; Fairfax refused. Same county, same prosecutor,
    same policy over and over again.
        Members, this is not incompetence; this is not coincidence;
    this is policy. Commonwealth's Attorney Descano publishes it on
    his own website. His office's formal written policy states that
    prosecutors shall, whenever possible, make charging and plea
    decisions that, quote, ``limit or avoid immigration
    consequences.'' That's not prosecutorial discretion; that is
    discrimination against American citizens in favor of those here
    illegally who commit additional crime.
        That is why the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund
    petitioned the Department of Justice, which earlier this month
    opened a civil rights investigation into Mr. Descano's office
    arguing that his policies violate the Equal Protection Clause
    of the 14th Amendment.
        Let me be clear about the law. Immigration is not a shared
    power with States. It belonged exclusively to the Federal
    Government, and Federal law expressly prohibits State and local
    governments from restricting communication with Federal
    immigration authorities. Fairfax County's policies do exactly
    that. This is not noncooperation; this is a deliberate choice
    to put a violent criminal back on the street.
        We know what works because Virginia proved it under
    Governor Glenn Youngkin. His Executive Order 47 established a
    State Immigration Task Force, and within eight weeks, over 130
    gang members were picked up, including the East Coast leader of
    the MS-13 living freely in Prince William County. He was
    captured. Virginia was called the national model.
        Our new Governor Spanberger dismantled it. Her first day in
    office, she signed Executive Order 1, ending State cooperation
    with ICE just 19 days before Stephanie Minter was killed. She
    now has a bill on her desk that would prohibit every
    jurisdiction in Virginia from cooperating with ICE. I think we
    all know what she will do.
        Government's first and most fundamental duty is to protect
    the people it governs. Sanctuary policies represent a
    catastrophic and willful failure of that duty.
        My mother came to this country because she believed the law
    would protect her. Cheryl Minter believed the same thing.
    Stephanie Minter deserved the same thing. Virginians are paying
    the price. I'm asking this Committee to make this stop.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair. I welcome the Committee's questions.
        [The prepared statement of the Hon. Miyares follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. We will next
    hear from Professor Stoever.

                       STATEMENT OF JANE STOEVER

        Ms. Stoever. Chair, Ranking Member, and the distinguished
    Members, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
        My name is Jane Stoever, and I'm a law professor at the
    University of California, Irvine School of Law, having first
    taught at Georgetown and American, directing domestic violence
    clinics for over 20 years now.
        Today's hearing was prompted by an unthinkable tragedy, and
    I extend my deepest condolences to Ms. Cheryl Minter for the
    loss of her daughter Stephanie Minter.
        All victims deserve safety and justice, and many has been
    failed by the systems that purport to help them. I'll be direct
    though. Focusing on immigration enforcement as the solution to
    violence against women is rooted in false narratives, not
    facts.
        Contrary to the premise of this hearing, sanctuary policies
    aren't obstacles to public safety; they're essential to it.
    Study after study, including by criminologist Charis Kubrin,
    shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes, and law enforcement
    leaders have warned that, when survivors fear the police,
    crimes go unreported and communities become less safe.
        As Cochair of my county's Domestic Violence Death Review
    Team, I can assure you, preventing abuse prevents fatalities.
    Policies that allow survivors to seek help without fear, to
    call the police without fear, save lives and improve community
    safety.
        I urge this Committee to focus on the real solutions to
    preventing and responding to violence against women, because I
    see my clients' safety further jeopardized now. Immigrant women
    in the United States face a lifetime risk of domestic
    violence--as high as 49.8 percent. That's three times the
    national average and 60 percent of immigrant women married to
    U.S. citizens experience immigration-related abuse.
        Survivors need protection, but face a Catch 22 remains in
    danger or risk deportation. Immigration enforcement has
    exponentially increased as Congress has allocated $170 billion
    and plans to add $70 billion more. ICE agents have daily arrest
    targets and are now empowered to stop, arrest, and detain
    people on the basis of race, language, location, and
    employment, and immigrant survivors are being swept up.
        In this context, the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors
    surveyed over 170 advocates and attorneys nationwide. Their
    findings are alarming. Over three-quarters of immigrant
    survivors have concerns about contacting the police. Seventy
    percent fear attending any court hearings, and half ultimately
    choose not to contact the police or to go to court for abuse.
        In Virginia, Fairfax County law enforcement reports rising
    numbers of victims withdrawing complaints. Survivors are
    avoiding courthouses, food banks, prenatal care, and shelters
    due to ICE raids, and are arranging for third parties to take
    custody of their children, should they be deported.
        At the same time, legal protections are being dismantled.
    Over 30 years ago, Congress enshrined protections for
    immigrants in the Violence Against Women Act with bipartisan
    support, and then, passed the Victims of Trafficking and
    Violence Prevention Act Protection Act. Today, survivors with
    pending, and even approved, petitions are being detained and
    removed.
        USCIS backlogs of VAWA self-petitions and lifesaving T and
    U visas compound the crisis with U visas taking over a decade
    to grant now.
        One of my clients married a U.S. citizen, but fled life-
    threatening abuse during pregnancy, only to be ordered removed
    unless she could prove successful adjudication of her vow of
    self-petition in one month's time. USCIS processing times are
    over four years currently. We expedited her case and awaited
    the decision on appeal. She is not the danger this
    administration or this hearing purport to address. Yet, she has
    been made a target, and I shudder to think what would happen if
    she didn't have an attorney.
        To seriously address crime victim safety, I respectfully
    urge Congress to:
        (1) Reject Section 287(g) agreements which harmfully
    entangle local police with Federal immigration enforcement.
        (2) To prohibit enforcement actions at courthouses, abuse
    shelters, and medical facilities the places we want people to
    seek help.
        (3) To bar ICE from detaining or removing individuals with
    pending survivor-based claims, as was Congress' original
    intent.
        (4) To restore valid VAWA U and T visa protections and
    public benefits, to fund USCIS staffing, and increase the
    annual caps.
        (5) In contrast to the hundreds of billions of dollars for
    immigration enforcement, $200 million in Federal victim
    services grants is sitting unspent, which should be immediately
    distributed to provide lifesaving services to survivors and
    those organizations, including in Virginia.
        Please stay focused on survivor's safety and act with
    urgency to restore and strengthen vital safeguards. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Stoever follows:]

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        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. We will next hear from Mr. Bier.

                       STATEMENT OF DAVID J. BIER

        Mr. Bier. Chair McClintock, Ranking Member Jayapal, and the
    distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
    opportunity to testify.
        For half a century, the Cato Institute's research has shown
    that people, whatever their ancestry, background, or
    birthplace, can thrive in a free society. Our research finds
    that immigrants, legal and illegal, work at higher rates,
    generate more income and taxes, and have reduced the national
    debt by $14.5 trillion over the last 30 years. Immigrants
    improve public safety by reducing violent crime rates, meaning
    that you are less likely to become a victim.
        Fairfax highlights this reality. About half the county's
    residents are immigrants or children of immigrants. Its
    household income is double the national average. Its murder
    rate is less than half the average. If illegal aliens in
    Fairfax were their own city, they'd have a lower homicide rate
    than 90 percent of America's largest cities and lower than the
    country's homicide rate overall. Nationwide, illegal immigrants
    are half as likely to commit serious crimes for which they're
    serving time as U.S.-born Americans.
        Despite all this, Congress refuses to allow most would-be
    immigrants to come legally, which leads to illegal immigration.
    Just three percent of all the people seeking permanent legal
    status in the United States were approved in 2024. That was
    before the current administration banned a majority of the
    legal immigrants previously allowed to come, including half of
    all the spouses of U.S. citizens. It has cut legal immigration
    twice as much as it has cut illegal immigration. At the same
    time, it terminated legal status for over two million
    immigrants who were already here, creating four times as many
    illegal immigrants as it has deported.
        America's cities must manage the fallout from this
    sabotaged system. Many have decided not to volunteer their
    cops, jails, and resources to DHS. DHS doesn't like that. Under
    our Constitution, cities and States don't take orders from the
    feds, and thank James Madison for that. Because we all know we
    wouldn't want the feds to dictate environmental policy, gun
    policy, or COVID policy to the states. If you want Fairfax to
    change its policies, you've got to convince them.
        The first step would be to give up on the mass deportation
    fantasy. About one in five Fairfax residents is someone who
    could be deported or who lives with them. It would destroy
    neighborhoods, rip Americans away from their spouses, parents,
    friends, families, customers, employees, employers, nurses,
    nannies, and teachers.
        Let me be clear: Noncitizens who harm Americans should be
    arrested, convicted, and deported. I think cities can help with
    that, but deportation is DHS's job. Indeed, you all passed the
    Laken Riley Act in 2025 to require DHS to immediately take
    custody of people charged with violence or a theft.
        DHS is ignoring that law. It has deprioritized threats to
    focus on easy targets. They aren't tracking down the serious
    criminal fugitives like the monster who killed Stephanie
    Minter. Instead, DHS agents are racially profiling Americans at
    Home Depots, arresting spouses of U.S. citizens at green card
    interviews, beating parents of U.S. Marines, and dragging legal
    immigrants and U.S. citizens from their homes without warrants.
        Only six percent of ICE arrests have a violent criminal
    conviction. ICE has arrested 150,000 people who have no
    criminal convictions or even charges, and we know it's not
    because they got everyone with a serious record. Stephanie's
    case and many others prove that.
        It's because they care about, as one ICE agent put it,
    ``quantity over quality.'' How many Stephanies will get
    murdered before DHS follows the law and prioritizes serious
    criminals? How many?
        Most Americans don't want to wait for the answer. They want
    to pause the mass deportation fantasy and focus on public
    safety. That's the only policy that will defend our safety, our
    prosperity, and our freedom.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Bier follows:]

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        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Mr. Kennedy?

                       STATEMENT OF SEAN KENNEDY

        Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Chair, Ranking Member, and the
    Members of this Committee. Thank you for inviting me to
    testify.
        My name is Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe
    Communities, a Fairfax-based public safety and victims' rights
    advocacy group, and I am an appointed member of the Fairfax
    County Criminal Justice Advisory Board.
        I'm going to get straight to the point. Anyone who is in
    the United States without legal status, any violent criminal,
    should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if
    they don't have legal status, they should be deported. Full
    stop.
        Those aren't my words. That was Governor Abigail Spanberger
    yesterday. In Fairfax County, neither of those things are
    happening.
        First, Fairfax chief prosecutor Steve Descano does not
    prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. In fact, one of his
    former prosecutors told me: Every time I hear Descano say,
    ``community values,'' I cringe because we should be following
    the law, not his values. In fact, he openly flouts the law,
    ordering his prosecutors to seek lighter sentences for violent
    criminals and sex offenders, including murderers and child
    rapists.
        Second, Mr. Descano boasts that he chooses which charges to
    bring and what sentences to seek, based on who is the offender.
    Being illegally present earns an offender preferential
    treatment, but that grace is not afforded to those who need it
    the most; something that the professor just spoke about
    victims. Make no mistake, the vast majority of criminal aliens'
    victims are themselves immigrants. They, too, deserve justice.
    They, too, deserve safety. They, too, deserve dignity. Mr.
    Descano has shown a callous disregard for them and their
    rights, our laws and our public safety. That is wrong and that
    is illegal, and it has appalling consequences.
        At four o'clock in the morning on June 15, 2023, a mother
    woke to the screams of her four-year-old girl from the next
    room. A man had broken in through the bedroom window and
    carried off the toddler, committing burglary with the intent to
    rape, according to the police.
        He was well-known to the police and Mr. Descano. He was
    Hyrum Baquedano-Rodriguez, a Honduran national. In 2021, two
    years before, Baquedano-Rodriguez was arrested for multiple
    incidents of ``indecent liberties with a child.'' Each of the
    three counts carried up to 10 years in prison under Virginia
    law, but Mr. Descano, who directs his prosecutors to avoid
    immigration consequences, reduced the charges. Despite
    committing a break-in while awaiting sentencing, Descano agreed
    to a six-month sentence for prior crimes.
        He was quickly arrested again for burglary to commit a
    felony, punishable by 20 years, but that was reduced to
    property damage. More arrests, probation violations, and
    dropped charges followed. He walked free and went fugitive.
        In 18 months, Baquedano-Rodriguez racked up five arrests
    and 23 charges, requiring him to spend the rest of his life in
    the Virginia Department of Corrections, but Mr. Descano's
    policies prohibited that. He'd stated that his deputies must
    ``make plea offers that avoid the legislatively mandated
    minimum jail sentence.'' A criminal alien was free to abduct a
    sleeping little girl.
        Somehow this ``parent's worst nightmare,'' in the words of
    Judge Randy Bellows, got worse when Mr. Descano gave the
    kidnapper a plea deal for less than two years in prison. An
    outraged Judge Bellows rejected the plea agreement, saying the
    only way to protect the community is a lengthy period of
    incarceration.
        When the same deal came before Judge Susan J. Stoney the
    next year, she, too, was incredulous:

            The court is concerned about the severity of the crime, the
            fact the defendant's criminal history indicates a record of
            other involvement with minors, and that the potential sentence
            here in this case is too lenient . . . the court has grave
            concern in the interest of public safety.

        In a vindictive and petty move, Mr. Descano then dropped
    all the charges. The little girl's family was beside
    themselves. He was set to be released within hours. Denied
    justice by the same man charged with protecting the innocent,
    their little girl and the public, that family had to act.
        The little girl's grandmother Natalie called the ICE
    hotline and said, ``I gave [them] all the information I had to
    the person on the other end.''
        When ICE arrested him, as he walked out, she said, ``It was
    a sigh of relief.'' According to the girl's mother Christy,
    ``God protected my little girl, but who is going to protect the
    next one?'' Certainly, not Mr. Descano.
        Sadly, since he has become Commonwealth's Attorney, this
    case is not the exception; it is the rule. Under Mr. Descano,
    it is policy. Fairfax's chief prosecutor has chosen to
    sacrifice victims on the altar of ideology. Hundreds, if not
    thousands, of violent and sex crimes should never have happened
    if Mr. Descano followed the law, not his values.
        In shielding criminal aliens, Mr. Descano shows a depraved
    indifference to human suffering. That is not compassion; it is
    cruelty. That is not compassion; it is cruelty.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Kennedy follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. McClintock. Thank you for your testimony. We will
    finally hear from Ms. Cheryl Minter.

                       STATEMENT OF CHERYL MINTER

        Ms. Minter. Good morning to the Members of the Committee. I
    appreciate you granting me the time and space to speak. Thank
    you for your attendance.
        My name is Cheryl Minter. I am the mother of Stephanie
    Nicole Minter. I would like to open today's subject, Stephanie
    Nicole Minter, with a poem.

            Every good painting will take a million strokes. To make a good
            song, you have to go mining to find the perfect notes. And a
            castle is created stone by stone with patience and care,
            because great leaps come with small steps and time.

        This poem comes from my favorite coffee cup, gifted to me
    by Stephanie. We would share a cup of coffee during the early
    mornings. We butted heads like every mother and daughter but
    wanted to actively take steps together to make our relationship
    better. We would share stories, memories, laughter, thoughts of
    the future, and more. This is something I will never get to
    experience again because of the failures of our justice system.
        Stephanie was my daughter, my heart. She was a loving
    mother, a daughter, sister, an auntie, a friend, and a mentor.
    She believed in God. She cared for people. She showed up for
    others, even when was tired. Stephanie was my memory, since
    mine isn't that great anymore. She always knew the right Bible
    verse for any situation, always smiling, always joyful, always
    loved life, even through the bad times.
        Stephanie was a woman who faced many battles in life. She
    always came out the other side of tough times with that bright
    smile on her face. That same smile is something I will never be
    able to see again a smile the world will never bear witness to
    again.
        On February 24, 2026, I woke up to the worst call a parent
    can ever receive. My daughter was gone, taken in the most
    horrific way, while simply waiting for a bus in Fairfax County
    on the night of February 23, 2026.
        No mother should have to stand here and say these words. No
    family should have to bury their child like this. Stephanie's
    life mattered. Her voice mattered. Her future mattered.
        Today, I stand here because her life was taken in a way
    that should have never happened. The man who took my daughter's
    life should not have been free to walk the streets.
        He had been picked up many times. He was known. There were
    warnings. There were emails sent saying he was a danger. Still,
    he was released.
        I am not here for politics. I am here for accountability. I
    am here because a system failed my daughter.
        If not for these failures, I could be sharing a cup of
    coffee with Stephanie this morning rather than speaking with
    you all today.
        When policies protect people who are a known threat,
    innocent lives are put at risk. When warnings are ignored,
    families like mine pay the price. This is not just about
    Stephanie; this is about every mother, every parent, every
    child, and every person who waits a bus stop, walks home, or
    goes to work trusting they will be safe.
        We cannot ignore this. We cannot look away. Compassion
    should never come at the cost of public safety. Care for one
    group should not mean danger for another. We can be a community
    that is both caring and responsible. We can have policies that
    protect people and, also, keep our streets safe.
        That means we must act. We must listen when there are
    warnings. We must take threats seriously. We must make sure
    that people who are dangerous are not released back into our
    neighborhoods.
        I will carry my daughter's name for the rest of my life. I
    will carry her memory, but I should not have to carry this pain
    because of a preventable failure.
        Stephanie deserved to come home that day. She deserved to
    watch her child grow. She deserved more time.
        I am asking you, please do not let her story be ignored. Do
    not let another family stand where I am standing. Make changes.
    Take responsibility. Protect your community. Because no mother
    should ever have to wake up to this nightmare.
        I'd like to read from Psalms 28:

              Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it
            out in proportion to their wickedness. Pay them back for all
            their evil deeds. Give them a taste of what they have done to
            others. They care nothing for what the Lord has done or for
            what his hands have made. So, he will tear them down, and they
            will never be rebuilt.

              Praise the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord
            is my strength and my shield. I trust him with all my heart. He
            helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs
            of thanksgiving. The Lord gives his people strength, for he is
            a safe fortress for his anointed king. Save your people! Bless
            Israel, your special possession. Lead them like a shepherd and
            carry them in your arms forever.

        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Minter follows:]

        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. We will now move to five-minute
    questions from Committee Members. We will start with Mr. Nehls.
        Mr. Nehls. Thank you, sir. I'm sorry, Ms. Minter. What a
    story, Stephanie; the numerous pictures we saw, beautiful.
        I apologize for the individuals that have held onto these
    irresponsible policies, costing the lives of many, many
    innocent Americans. I apologize. Mr. Kennedy, I appreciate your
    passion. You are right on target. Mr. Descano well, Sheriff
    Kincaid, thank you for your service. Mr. Descano, I consider
    you a disgrace.
        I yield the rest of the balance of time to my colleague,
    Mr. Cline.
        Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman, and I thank the Chair for
    allowing me to sit on this panel today.
        I represent the vast majority of Virginia citizens who
    stand with you, Ms. Minter, and who are so sorry for the
    tragedy that occurred, and our prayers are with you and with
    your daughter, who is in heaven looking down on this right now.
        I heard your apology, Mr. Descano. I think the public would
    like to hear your resignation. Let me ask you, when Abdul
    Jalloh is released, will you honor an ICE detainer?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, my office is a prosecuting office. We
    don't receive ICE detainers. That's not our business.
        Mr. Cline. Will you, Sheriff Kincaid, honor the ICE
    detainer?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Well, thank you for that question. I would
    certainly hope that this case would be prosecuted and that
    justice would be served.
        Certainly, when it comes to Mr. Jalloh, there haven't been
    an ICE detainers, with the exception of one time in 2018, which
    we turned him over to ICE, and then, the second time, which we
    had to release him to a facility. Each time he's been in my
    custody, there's been no detainers.
        Mr. Cline. If one comes, will you honor it?
        Sheriff Kincaid. As long as I have the authority to do so,
    and ICE knows what our policy is.
        Mr. Cline. Then, yes?
        Sheriff Kincaid. If I'm given a judicial warrant, yes.
        Mr. Cline. That's different.
        Sheriff Kincaid. Well, it's what gives me the authority to
    detain somebody when I'm getting when I receive a court order
    from a judge mandating someone's release. I would also hope
    that ICE would know when Mr. Jalloh is getting released, so
    that they would be able to come and pick him up.
        We do plan, should he get convicted, on taking him, driving
    him down to the Department of Corrections.
        Mr. Cline. All right. Well, Mr. Descano, your policy tells
    prosecutors to give lighter treatment to defendants based on
    their immigration status. Isn't that just discrimination with a
    sympathetic face? Why are you protecting criminal illegal
    aliens more than the people of Fairfax County, the citizens?
        Mr. Descano. Well, first, sir, I think there's two things
    wrong with in the question that you asked me. We're not
    protecting undocumented individuals. As a matter of fact, we
    prosecute people who commit crimes in Fairfax County,
    regardless of their status. We and so the idea that we don't do
    that is simply wrong.
        Our policies simply maintain that our role is to prosecute
    Virginia crime. That's what we do. ICE's role is to do Federal
    civil immigration enforcement.
        Mr. Cline. Mr. Miyares, do you disagree with that?
        Mr. Miyares. Fundamentally. He has a written policy to that
    effect. He is conflating two different issues. He's simply
    saying, ``Well, I prosecute all crimes,'' at the same time he
    has a written policy saying that illegal immigrants are going
    to be treated and given preferential treatment differently from
    American citizens. On one hand, he sits in front of this
    Committee and says: We don't follow sanctuary policies. At the
    same time, he openly admits he conducts himself in a manner in
    which he does not cooperate with Federal immigration
    authorities. That's the very definition of sanctuary policies.
        No, I fundamentally disagree with his assessment. There are
    95 counties in Virginia, Congressman. Only one county with one
    prosecutor has a written policy saying: We're going to treat
    illegal immigrants differently than American citizens. It is
    Mr. Descano to my left, period, full stop.
        Mr. Cline. Well, I know that when ICE does work with
    localities, the system can work. I worked in Harrisonburg,
    Rockingham Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. They had a 287(g)
    agreement with ICE. When individuals who were prosecuted who
    were here illegally eventually served their sentences, they
    were met by ICE. They were retrieved by ICE and returned to
    their countries of
    origin.
        The people of Rockingham and Harrisonburg benefited from
    that policy because the streets were safer, and people who
    Committed crimes were not returned to the Communities that they
    threatened prior to their arrest.
        The people who are here from Fairfax, stand and answer the
    Ranking Member's question about well, I've run out of time. I
    hope I can get some more time because people who are working
    hard in Fairfax County deserve to not just feel safe, as the
    Ranking Member indicated, but actually are safe.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms.
    Jayapal?
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Descano, there's
    been a lot said. I just want to ask you a few yes-or-no
    questions. Your office works with DHS regularly on criminal
    issues, just not civil immigration enforcement, is that
    correct?
        Mr. Descano. That is correct.
        Ms. Jayapal. If DHS came to you with a judicial warrant to
    take someone in your custody, would you comply?
        Mr. Descano. Well, we don't hold people in custody, but we
    have worked with that department for criminal cases before, and
    we will continue to do so.
        Ms. Jayapal. Do you arrest, prosecute, convict, and
    incarcerate individuals accused of crimes, regardless of
    immigration status?
        Mr. Descano. Absolutely.
        Ms. Jayapal. I just want to reiterate a couple of points.
    Again, yes or no. Is the crime rate in Fairfax County one of
    the lowest in the country?
        Mr. Descano. Yes.
        Ms. Jayapal. Is Fairfax County rated among the safest
    jurisdictions of its size by the Major City Chiefs Association?
        Mr. Descano. Yes.
        Ms. Jayapal. Given the ramp-up of illegal mass detentions
    and the attacks on legal immigration that Mr. Bier and others
    have spoken about, how has that played out on the ground for
    you? Are people in immigrant communities, communities of color,
    feeling safe to come forward and report crimes, testify?
        Mr. Descano. No, they're absolutely not, and that, in fact,
    makes my job as a local prosecutor much harder. As I'm sure
    you're aware, when we do cases, we have to rely on the
    evidence. Most of the time, that evidence is through victim and
    witness testimony. We want our members of our community to come
    to court. When they're scared, as they currently are becoming
    more and more scared with what ICE is doing, they are more
    reluctant to come to court. When we don't have witnesses, that
    means, unfortunately, bad guys hit the streets again. As a
    prosecutor, that's what I don't want. That's what my trust
    policy is trying to avoid.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Professor Stoever, I want to turn
    to you. Immigrant women experience domestic violence at rates
    nearly three times the national average and are often among the
    most vulnerable, because the fear of deportation can keep them
    trapped in these abusive situations. I have done a lot of work
    on this issue, as you know.
        In your work, you have written about the importance of
    trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement.
    When immigrant communities know that calling 911 will not
    result in deportation for themselves or a family member, they
    are more willing to report and help law enforcement solve
    crimes.
        Can you discuss how local police working too closely with
    ICE can undermine that trust, and whether this Administration's
    aggressive immigration policies are making it harder for
    domestic violence survivors to come forward and seek help?
        Ms. Stoever. Yes, thank you for your work on this area. It
    absolutely undermines trust. When you have law enforcement, and
    that the line between law enforcement and immigration
    enforcement blurred, when you call the police, you don't know,
    when they show up at your door, are they there to help or to
    deport you. It's absolutely created a chilling effect and
    really suppressed people coming forward to get help, which then
    causes greater danger for the broader community.
        I'll identify just one survivor quote from a survivor
    reaching out to a local service provider, who said her abuser
    would tell her, quote, ``Look at the TV''--referring to the
    coverage of immigration raids and the rhetoric about
    immigrants, ``see how no one cared about her.''
        This is really creating a very significant chilling effect
    for abuse survivors and continuing to escalate abuse.
        Ms. Jayapal. I'm hearing a lot about that from survivors in
    my own district.
        Mr. Bier, I want to thank you for all your research on
    Trump's attacks on the legal immigration system. He, of course,
    said he was going to go after ``the worst of the worst,'' and
    that is, clearly, not what is happening.
        Republicans want to force States and localities to comply
    with these mass deportation policies, and they want to threaten
    to cut billions in law enforcement, public safety, and national
    security funding to the jurisdictions that refuse to comply.
        (1) Can the Federal Government force States and localities
    to do the Federal Government's job?
        (2) Why is it not in the interest of the public and public
    safety to force local jurisdictions to do this?
        Mr. Bier. Well, first, the 10th Amendment puts a firewall
    in place. We have a system of federalism. The Supreme Court has
    been quite clear on this. You cannot force State and local
    governments to do what you want. Congress' powers are limited.
    You can order the Federal agencies to do whatever you want; you
    cannot, as you know, as long as it comports with the
    Constitution, of course, but you cannot tell the States and
    local governments what to do.
        You also cannot use your Federal grant-making authority as
    a backdoor to coerce States into doing what they want. The
    Republicans, and certainly myself and the Cato Institute, were
    quite happy in the Obamacare decision, where they said you
    can't force Medicaid expansion on States by denying all
    Medicaid to States that don't cooperate. That was a protection
    of federalism, and we should continue and defend the Federalist
    system of government from these attacks.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Biggs?
        Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, specifically, Ms.
    Minter, for being here today. It takes a great deal of courage,
    and I appreciate your being here.
        I thought it was an interesting thing when we heard that
    Americans care about their microeconomy. Do you know what they
    really care about? Because if you have money and you are
    unsafe, it is like you don't have money. You need to be safe.
    That is what Americans really care about. First, you need to be
    safe. Americans want to be safe.
        I thought it was interesting, too, when the Ranking Member
    said, ``hey, stand up here if something to the gallery if you
    support immigrants,'' so that they are able to make 911 calls.
    I thought that was interesting. Everybody stood up, and then, a
    few sat down.
        Do you know who can't stand up today? Do you know who is
    not here today? The victims of the crimes of those individuals
    that were released into the community, knowing that they had a
    propensity to commit these types of crimes. They're not here to
    answer for themselves.
        That is why we have ostensibly, that is why you have the
    police agencies.
        I thought I would tell you, do you know who is not here?
    Ms. Minter's wonderful daughter Stephanie. She's not here,
    because Abdul Jalloh was released.
        A victim of Maldin Anibal Guzman who was killed is not
    here.
        The victim of Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez is not here. He
    was killed. He was killed. Released by these individuals.
        Wilmer Osmany Ramos Giron, the victim of his strangulation
    is not here.
        The victim of Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez, charged 19
    times for violent and firearm-related incidents, is not here.
    The victims cannot be here.
        The victim of Hyrum Baquedano-Rodriguez the judge found
    what Mr. Descano's office, his plea agreement was so offensive,
    they rejected them. Then, a second judge rejected the plea
    offer. The victims there, they are not here today.
        Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, again, and we could go on
    and we could name these victims who are not here because of the
    policies of this Fairfax County office.
        With that, I'm going to yield two minutes, the last two
    minutes to my friend from Virginia, Mr. Cline.
        Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
        I want to get back to this idea that Fairfax is somehow a
    standout for keeping crime low. In fact, they are ranked No. 3
    nationally by release volume out of sanctuary strongholds
    across the country that routinely disregard detention requests
    from ICE. Behind Santa Clara County's main pretrial holding
    facility in California and Chicago's Cook County jail in
    Illinois. The number of releases is third nationally. It is
    actually an embarrassment.
        From October 2022-February 2025, the Fairfax County Adult
    Detention Center freed more than a thousand deportable illegal
    immigrants from lockup, in direct defiance of over 1,150
    detainers lodged by ICE.
        The people who the Ranking Member wants to feel safe in
    Fairfax, without worrying about whether they are actually safe,
    are scared to walk home, are scared to take the bus to work, or
    if they are staying in a part of Fairfax that is not the best
    part of Fairfax, that they are going to encounter a criminal
    that is on release from the Fairfax County Jail.
        To Mr. Bier, Congress does have limited powers, but we do
    have the power of the purse. It becomes increasingly clear
    that, for those jurisdictions that are happy to take Federal
    tax dollars when it comes to COPS grants and I'm a supporter of
    COPS grants but when those jurisdictions are not actually
    implementing policies that create safe communities, that make
    maybe people feel safe because you talk about ``feeling safe,''
    but are you actually safe in your community? In Fairfax,
    arguably, no, I would say they are not.
        Making those COPS dollars contingent on 287(g) agreements
    is very legal, is very possible. You can shake your head--
        Mr. Bier. No, no, it's definitely not--
        Mr. Cline. I didn't ask you a question.
        Mr. Bier. I mean, you can read.
        Mr. Cline. I didn't ask you a question.
        Mr. Bier. Well, you--
        Mr. Cline. It is quite legal. The bill that I have
    introduced would do just that.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Cline. I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. The Chair recognizes Mr. Raskin.
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Did you want to address
    that, Mr. Bier?
        Mr. Bier. Yes, really quickly. We have multiple appeals
    courts' decisions directly on the point of denying funding to
    jurisdictions based on the fact that they have Democratic
    leadership.
        The point about the Medicaid expansion in the Obamacare
    case, it was directly related. It was healthcare spending that
    they were making contingent on expanding Medicaid. The Supreme
    Court said you cannot coerce States and localities to adopt
    Federal policy using money in this way.
        There's no question it's unconstitutional for Congress to
    do this.
        Mr. Raskin. Then, that is the position anyone who is a real
    champion of federalism and States' rights would hold, which is
    what you can't do indirectly. You can't do it indirectly
    through the coercive use of money. You can't give a State a
    ``godfather offer,'' which is, basically you do what we say or
    else.
        Commonwealth's Attorney Descano, Sheriff Kincaid, I don't
    know if either of you can answer a few questions I have got.
        It seems to me like the whole premise of this hearing is to
    blame you for the terrible murder and tragedy of Stephanie
    Minter.
        Here's what I don't understand. The guy was being held for
    two years in 2018 and 2019 by ICE under the first Trump
    Administration. Why was he not deported then? Why did he end up
    back on the streets? Why didn't ICE release him? Can you tell
    me why, Mr. Descano? Do you know? Or Ms. Kincaid?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Well, that's a good question, and that's
    something that I would refer to ICE on, because they did have
    him in custody. When he showed up back in our jurisdiction in
    2022 we wondered the same.
        Mr. Raskin. Yes It is just fascinating to me that we have
    got seven witnesses here, and somebody else who is not here, in
    addition to Stephanie, is ICE. ICE cannot account for well, I
    will get to you if I have got enough time.
        That is baffling to me. That is puzzling. I have been
    asking about that for the last couple of days. Somebody said,
    ``well, he was from Sierra Leone, and Sierra Leone didn't want
    to take him back.'' Of course, as we know, this Administration
    has no problem deporting people to third countries, third-party
    countries, removing them to third-party countries.
        Why wasn't he removed by ICE? They are the only ones who
    have got the power to kick him out of the country. You don't
    have the power to deport him, do you, State's Attorney?
        Mr. Descano. No, sir, I don't have the power, and quite
    frankly--
        Mr. Raskin. Yes.
        Mr. Descano. --there's nothing in my policies, if somebody
    is deportable when they come to my office, there's nothing in
    my power to change that.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. Do you know exactly how many violent crimes
    he committed before he was in the custody of ICE? Because there
    were reports that he had committed a stabbing and some
    assaults.
        Mr. Descano. I don't know the exact number, but there I
    believe there were multiple--
        Mr. Raskin. OK. ICE was aware. This guy is a violent
    criminal. They are holding him and they release him back on the
    streets. Then, you do your job, and your only job, which is to
    prosecute those offenses. You did that, right?
        Mr. Descano. Yes, sir, and we got a multiyear jail sentence
    as well.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. Sheriff Kincaid, if I'm understanding you
    properly, ICE did not issue detainers when he was held for
    those offenses. They did once, and you complied with it. On the
    other ones, they didn't issue as I understand it, ICE didn't
    come forward with a detainer until after Stephanie Minter was
    killed. Is that right?
        Sheriff Kincaid. A time before when we had to relocate this
    individual to a different facility. Other than that, there were
    no detainers at all.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. Again, I feel like we are in a courtroom in
    Fairfax County, Virginia, or in the Richmond legislature.
    Obviously, if somebody doesn't like the job that the sheriff is
    doing, if somebody doesn't like the job that the Commonwealth's
    Attorney is doing, run against them.
        One of these sounded Mr. Kennedy, you sounded like a
    campaign speech you were making. You have got the right to run
    against him. Have you faced a reelection yet, Commonwealth--
        Mr. Descano. Yes, sir, I won with 77 percent of my
    community's vote.
        Mr. Raskin. Are you elected, Sheriff Kincaid, or are you
    appointed?
        Sheriff Kincaid. No, I'm elected.
        Mr. Raskin. Have you won reelection?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Several times with the majority of the
    vote.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. I take it that all these issues, which are
    complicated, which are a result of the failure of Congress to
    actually engage in comprehensive immigration reform, are
    heavily debated in Fairfax County. We don't need to kick off
    your next reelection with debates here about your performance
    in office. That is beneath the dignity of this Committee to be
    telling local officials they should be defeated or should
    resign from office. That doesn't make sense to me.
        Mr. Bier, what should Congress be doing to get us out of
    this constant immigration nightmare? We almost had a ``Big
    Bipartisan Deal'' at the end of 2024. Everybody in the Senate
    agreed to it. All the Democrats in the House agreed to it.
    Then, I think Donald Trump said, ``I don't want a deal. I want
    an issue to run on.'' Is that right?
        Mr. Bier. The bottom line is, as you said, we need--
    bipartisan immigration reform.
        Mr. McClintock. Excuse me. Mr. Bier, suspend for a moment.
    The gentleman's time has expired.
        I will give you a very brief time to answer that question.
    You can also respond to it in later questions.
        Mr. Bier. We need to get back to legality and orderly
    immigration. That means a process for people who are peaceful
    people to get legal status, and for people who are peaceful to
    come here legally. That's bipartisan immigration reform, in my
    opinion.
        Mr. McClintock. Chair Jordan?
        Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me, first,
    introduce Mr. Biggs for a unanimous consent request.
        Mr. Biggs. I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry, Mr.
    Chair.
        Here's a series of articles. I will just do a few of them,
    and then, give the whole stack to you:
        (1) ``Virginia Murder Suspect in Bus Stop Stabbing Had
    Lengthy Criminal History, Multiple Dropped Charges.''
        (2) Abdul Jalloh Allegedly Killed Stephanie Minter at
    Fairfax County Bus Shelter After Prosecutors Dropped Charges in
    Most Previous Cases. ``Completely Failed Stephanie.''
        (3) ``Illegal Alien with Lengthy Arrest Record Allegedly
    Butchers Woman at Virginia Bus Stop.''
        Then, there is a whole stack of others which I won't read,
    but will just submit for the record, if that's OK, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Without objection. Chair Jordan?
        Chair Jordan. Thank you. Sheriff, why did you let Marvin
    Morales-Ortez out of jail?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Because I received a court order, a
    judicial order from a judge ordering his release.
        Chair Jordan. Because the guy beside you wouldn't prosecute
    him, right?
        Sheriff Kincaid. You'd have to talk to him.
        Chair Jordan. This guy, the guy beside you, wouldn't
    prosecute the guy who was an illegal migrant who had been
    charged with six different crimes; who was arrested for murder
    in 2020; who, in 2023, assaulted a police officer, and who, in
    September 2025, was charged with aggravated malicious wounding
    and brandishing a gun. That guy is released; you can't hold him
    because he is not going to be prosecuted, is that right?
        Sheriff Kincaid. I'm not sure about, you know--
        Chair Jordan. Well, that is what you told us. You sent us a
    letter on March 11, 2026, addressed to me and Chair McClintock.
    You said, ``On December 16, 2025, the Commonwealth's Attorney
    moved to not prosecute the charges of aggravated malicious
    wounding and brandishing a firearm by Mr. Morales-Ortez.'' You
    had to let him out, didn't you?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Through a court order by a judge, yes, I
    did.
        Chair Jordan. You had to let him out.
        Sheriff Kincaid. I was ordered to release him by a judge.
        Chair Jordan. I see you have got some of your deputies
    behind. How is morale in your department, Sheriff? Is it good?
        Sheriff Kincaid. I didn't know I was here to talk about
    morale, sir, but based on what I--
        Chair Jordan. You are here to answer the questions we ask
    you; that is what you are here for, yes.
        Sheriff Kincaid. Of course, I am.
        Chair Jordan. OK.
        Sheriff Kincaid. I'm also here to talk about what I was
    invited here to talk about.
        Chair Jordan. Well, I will refer you to a statement you
    made in August, ``Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid, a
    Democrat, also told 7 News reporter Nick Minnick, `It's
    shameful the way things have not been prosecuted.' '' Do you
    stand by that statement?
        Sheriff Kincaid. If that's what was written, I do.
        Chair Jordan. No, I'm not asking if that is what was
    written. I'm saying, did you say that and do you stand by that?
    Is that having an impact on morale?
        Because most of the police departments I know, and sheriffs
    and deputies that I know, when they get the bad guys off the
    street, they like to see them prosecuted, so they don't come
    back on the street, harm the community you are supposed to
    protect, and make their job tougher, because they have got to
    go get them again when they commit some other crime.
        That is why I asked the morale question, in light of your
    statement just a few months ago where you said it's shameful
    that the guy beside you is not prosecuting people.
        Sheriff Kincaid. I did.
        Chair Jordan. You said that?
        Sheriff Kincaid. I did.
        Chair Jordan. OK. Good. Mr. Descano, why did you change
    your website?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, first, let me address what you said
    earlier.
        Chair Jordan. No, no, no. You answer the questions we ask.
    You answer the questions we ask. I asked a simple question. Why
    did you change your website last month?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, your statement about we're not--
    don't want to prosecute guys is absolutely false. My policies
    so far in this hearing.
        Chair Jordan. I'm reading what you are saying what the
    sheriff wrote me is wrong?
        Mr. Descano. No, what I'm saying is, that the way that my
    policies have been presented in this are outrageous.
        Chair Jordan. December 16th, you tell that she said, ``The
    Commonwealth's Attorney'' that's you chose not to prosecute Mr.
    Morales-Ortez, on December 16th, and they had to release him.
    They had to do their job. Because you wouldn't prosecute, what
    happened on December 17th, Mr. Descano?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, let's talk about December 16th--
        Chair Jordan. No, no, that's the question. What happened on
    December 17th--
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, you got the nuanced--
        Chair Jordan. This guy murdered somebody. This guy murdered
    somebody. I'm asking you, why did you change your website?
        Mr. Descano. Well, do you not want me to talk to you about
    the actual case?
        Chair Jordan. I want you to answer the first question I
    said.
        Mr. Descano. Which was about the case, sir.
        Chair Jordan. Why did you change your website?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, because the website is not my
    policy. My policy, you--
        Chair Jordan. I think the voters--
        Mr. Descano. You are referring to a campaign web--
        Chair Jordan. I think the voters might be interested in
    that.
        Mr. Descano. No, sir--
        Chair Jordan. This is your campaign website where you said,
    ``Our office will take immigration consequences into account
    when making charging and plea decisions.''
        Immigration consequences were certainly part of the game
    here, part of the issue here with Mr. Morales-Ortez.
        Mr. Descano. No, they weren't.
        Chair Jordan. You decided not to prosecute him.
        Mr. Descano. They absolutely were not.
        Chair Jordan. You decided--
        Mr. Descano. You are assuming something that is not--that
    is, in fact, untrue, because you are misrepresenting my
    policies. My policies do not say that we do not prosecute
    people because of their immigration status.
        Chair Jordan. Well, if you're proud of your policies, why
    did you change your website?
        Mr. Descano. Because that's not my policy. As I told you,
    sir that is a campaign statement--
        Chair Jordan. Well, Mr. Descano--it had been up for six
    years.
        Mr. Descano. --that I made before I was Commonwealth's
    Attorney.
        Chair Jordan. A week after we send you a letter saying we
    want you to come to testify, shazam, you have changed it.
        Mr. Descano. Because I could not--
        Chair Jordan. I'm just asking, is that coincidental?
        Mr. Descano. Because I could not believe that somebody,
    that people were so obtuse that they could not realize what the
    difference between a campaign statement and an actual office
    policy is.
        Chair Jordan. When you make campaign statements, that's
    not--those aren't true? You're not being honest with your
    voters?
        Mr. Descano. That's not what I'm saying at all, sir.
        Chair Jordan. It sure sounded like it.
        Mr. Descano. What I am saying--
        Chair Jordan. It sure sounded like it.
        Mr. Descano. It's absolutely not. What I'm saying is that,
    when you--
        Chair Jordan. You still haven't told me--
        Mr. Descano. --write office policies--
        Chair Jordan. --why you took it--you still haven't told me
    why you took it down.
        Mr. Descano. Because I was hoping to come here to talk
    about my office policies, not be distracted by a campaign
    statement that was made--
        Chair Jordan. Not be distracted? This is--
        Mr. Descano. --a year before I was actually Commonwealth's
    Attorney--
        Chair Jordan. Attorney General, Attorney--
        Mr. Descano. --and had any cases that were mine.
        Chair Jordan. This is almost laughable. This is your
    policy. You said it right here. You told the voters: If you
    elect me, I will take into account immigration consequences
    when making charging and pleading decisions.
        Mr. Descano. This is my policy, not what you have in your
    hand.
        Chair Jordan. Oh, OK. What you said to the voters is not
    real? It doesn't count?
        Mr. Descano. No, sir, what I'm saying is that, as an office
    holder--
        Chair Jordan. I just find it interesting--
        Mr. Descano. --my office is run by my policy.
        Chair Jordan. Your sheriff said you wouldn't prosecute.
    This guy gets released; kills someone the next day. We started
    asking about it. You change your website and take down the
    statements that say you're going to take into account
    immigration consequences when you decide what--
        Mr. Descano. Well, my policy is public--
        Chair Jordan. --when you decide what you are going to
    charge.
        Mr. Descano. --and it has been public the entire time I've
    been in office, sir.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Ross?
        Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Ranking
    Member.
        To our witnesses who--I know Mr. Bier has been here before.
    He is familiar with how this Committee rarely works on getting
    to the root of a problem and finding a bipartisan solution. I
    think this hearing is a perfect example of that.
        To Ms. Minter, I am deeply, deeply sorry for your loss. No
    one this Committee, regardless of political party, wants
    criminals roaming the street, whether they are here illegally
    or whether they are U.S. citizens. What happened to your
    daughter is a travesty, and I am so, so sorry.
        I also want to apologize to Sheriff Kincaid. This is Police
    Week. This is the week where we lift up what you and your team
    do to keep our communities safe. It is clear from your
    testimony that that is your sole focus. As the first person
    here to actually recognize that, I want to thank you for your
    service and I want to thank the officers that you brought along
    with you.
        Sheriff Kincaid. Thank you.
        Ms. Ross. State and local law enforcement officers know how
    to do their jobs. You have to build trust with community
    members to do your job. You have to build trust with those
    members to get them to bring crimes to your attention and to
    get the evidence you need to prosecute people who have done
    things that are just horrible, like in the case of Ms. Minter.
        Victims of crime also need to know that if they go to law
    enforcement to report a crime, they will not themselves be
    either detained or deported, or something happen to them.
    Otherwise, we won't be able to deal with people in a civil
    society.
        I'm going to start with Mr. Bier because he is very
    experienced before this Committee. He has done a great deal of
    research on the topic of immigrants and crime.
        Before President Trump came to office, were immigrants more
    or less likely to report crime and I'm not just talking about
    illegal immigrants; I'm talking about all immigrants,
    naturalized; people who are here legally more or less likely to
    report crime and cooperate with the police compared to U.S.
    citizens?
        Mr. Bier. They were more likely, according to the Crime
    Victimization Survey, which is administered by the Department
    of Justice every year, more likely to report crimes to the
    police than U.S.-born individuals. That also holds true for
    noncitizens who half of whom are in the country illegally at
    that time.
        Ms. Ross. Are immigrant victims of crimes, including those
    who have legal status and how are they treated when they report
    a crime or go to court to testify?
        Mr. Bier. Well, right now, the Administration is targeting
    people who go to courthouses. They're arresting witnesses and
    victims of crimes. They're working with State and local
    jurisdictions that will cooperate with them to make arrests.
        We've seen individuals for example, in Palm Beach, Florida,
    an individual called 911, a welfare check on his four-year-old
    daughter. ICE worked with the Florida police to arrest him
    after he called 911. He couldn't believe it; he was shocked
    that in America they would prioritize arresting someone based
    on effectively, he was an asylum seeker. He had an asylum
    application pending. It didn't matter. The ICE laughed at that
    because they don't consider that a basis to argue against
    detention anymore.
        Ms. Ross. My understanding is that, last year, ICE agents
    event tackled a rape survivor in a courthouse after she gave
    sworn testimony in a case against a rapist.
        Mr. Bier. Correct.
        Ms. Ross. That has been widely reported. OK. Well, thank
    you for that.
        I only have a few seconds left. I want to ask Professor
    Stoever, have you seen situations where victims specifically
    declined to call the police because they feared immigration
    consequences for themselves or their family members; thus,
    allowing violent criminals to go free?
        Ms. Stoever. Yes, I absolutely have.
        Ms. Ross. Have you had those incidents when the criminal
    was a citizen of the United States?
        Ms. Stoever. Yes, actually, more often than not, when the
    actual abuse perpetrator is a citizen.
        Ms. Ross. That means citizens of the United States are not
    being prosecuted, is that correct?
        Ms. Stoever. Correct.
        Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Van Drew?
        Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I want to bring this--the other side has brought us the
    ``Bizarro World,'' and I want to bring this to the world of
    reality.
        First, I want to say to you, Ms. Minter--and I mean--I know
    you hear crocodile tears from politicians; you hear how sorry;
    you hear how sad; you hear the condolences. None of that does
    it justice. There are no words I can ever say. I say this every
    time we have another victim's family here. I pray to God
    there's a day when this no longer happens and we don't have to
    have these hearings.
        We are going to have them with the good leadership of our
    Chair and this Committee, because it needs to be talked about.
    If it needs to be talked about over and over again, and good
    Americans like you are willing to be here, because you love
    your children, because you loved her, and you are willing to
    stand up, I applaud you.
        Because more than a condolence, and more than any of that,
    is, when somebody says that to you, say, ``Change the policy.
    Don't let it happen to somebody else.'' It shouldn't happen to
    anybody. God help you; I don't know how you do it, but we are
    praying for you.
        Second, when I say I want to bring this out of ``Bizarro
    World,'' I was thinking about all the empty, a lot of times,
    people gather around the kitchen table. Stephanie Minter's
    chair, that chair at the table is empty tonight; Laken Riley's
    chair is empty tonight; Rachel Morin's chair is empty tonight;
    and Jocelyn Nungaray's chair. They are all human beings. They
    are all human souls that have families that love them, and they
    love their family. They are gone.
        We have got more than that. We could spend the whole time
    here reading lists of people who have been murdered, hurt,
    beaten, and raped because of what has happened and these
    policies. They are human beings.
        Do you know what the worst of it is? Not the most important
    part, but on top of all it, we are paying for all this.
    Sanctuary States and sanctuary cities cost a fortune.
        The State of New Jersey, where I am, they estimate and this
    is not me; this came out in publications $7.3 billion not
    million billion every year because of sanctuary policies. That
    is a lot of money for people who are really squeezed. It is
    horrible and it shouldn't happen.
        Also, I want to allude to the fact, you have people who are
    worried about, sometimes when ICE goes into where there is a
    church, where there is a department store, or there is a school
    nobody really wants that. Do you know why that is happening? It
    is happening predominantly in Blue States because the local law
    enforcement State, county, and local in sanctuary States are
    not allowed to cooperate, where normally they would turn
    somebody over to ICE, and you wouldn't have to go through that
    process. If we all cooperated and worked together and cared
    about the people we serve, we'd be in better shape.
        Mr. Descano, a simple question. Are American communities
    safer when illegal immigrants who commit crimes are deported or
    when they remain in those communities? Are they safer when they
    are deported, the communities, yes or no? Just yes or no.
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, that's not--
        Mr. Van Drew. Yes or no. Yes or no? I'm asking the
    questions. You will give me the answer then.
        Mr. Descano. I'm trying to answer them.
        Mr. Van Drew. No, you are--
        Mr. Descano. Because you asked me a question--
        Mr. Van Drew. You have been--
        Mr. Descano. --that's outside of my purview. I can tell
    you--
        Mr. Van Drew. Jim Jordan down there asked you questions.
    You are a human being. You are sitting next to a woman who lost
    her daughter. Can you tell me if illegal criminals are removed
    from the country, if we are safer?
        Mr. Descano. To suggest that I don't care--
        Mr. Van Drew. No.
        Mr. Descano. --about what happens in my community--
        Mr. Van Drew. Well, this is my time.
        Mr. Descano. I go to work every day trying to protect my
    community.
        Mr. Van Drew. You are going to answer my questions. You are
    going to answer my questions. You don't show any discipline.
    When I'm asked questions, I answer them. you are not willing to
    answer that question? OK.
        I ask you this question: Let's talk about Abdul Jalloh. Yes
    or no, would Stephanie Minter be alive today if he had been
    deported?
        Do you know why he wasn't deported? Because, quite frankly,
    the Administration was not as aggressive, and if a country
    didn't want to accept these awful people that came from the
    country, we didn't know where to send them and we held them and
    we detained them. Now, we are finding places to send them, so
    that this doesn't go on.
        That is the answer. That is why that happened. It is not a
    mystery. It is not something weird or unusual. They didn't know
    where the heck to put them. Now, we just do it and we get it
    done.
        Nevertheless, would we be safer if he wasn't in the country
    then? Would we be safer, yes or no?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, your--
        Mr. Van Drew. Yes or no, would it be safer if the man
    wasn't in the country?
        Mr. Descano. Of course--
        Mr. Van Drew. Damn it, answer my question.
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I'm trying. You keep changing the
    question.
        Mr. Van Drew. No, it is yes or no. There is a bad guy that
    murders people. Are we safer if he is not in the country?
        Mr. Descano. Certainly, If somebody is--if some--
        Mr. Van Drew. No. You didn't answer the question. I'm
    sorry.
        I will ask you this: Explain to the lady next to you. Abdul
    Jalloh was charged in your county more than 40 times, not four
    times, 40 times. Your office dropped the charges in almost
    every single case. That is fact. We have it documented. We can
    look at it.
        Your own Fairfax County Police Department wrote your office
    we have it; it is fact May 2025 saying: He has shown a quote,
    ``blatant disregard for human life'' and was a danger to the
    community; and that if he wasn't detained and deported, he
    would seriously hurt someone or kill someone. The very man went
    out, and then, killed someone.
        The question is, couldn't we have done better there?
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's--yes, the gentleman's time
    has expired.
        Mr. Van Drew. I know.
        Mr. McClintock. I will take that as a rhetorical question.
    Mr. Nadler is recognized.
        Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Chair, this Subcommittee has hardly been busy this
    year. Clearly, Republicans have no desire to conduct oversight
    of the Trump Administration's brutal and reckless campaign to
    strike fear in immigrant communities across the country. They
    don't want to draw more attention to an out-of-control
    Department of Homeland Security that lets masked agents murder
    American citizens and tear children away from their parents.
        They can't manage to hold a hearing about ICE detention
    facilities that fail to meet the basic medical needs of
    detainees and have their highest death rates in decades.
        They certainly have no interest in holding a hearing to
    justify the Republican plan to hand a $70 billion blank check
    to the Trump Administration to advance its reckless, chaotic,
    and inhumane immigration policies, when it hasn't even spent
    most of the money we gave them in the Big Ugly Bill.
        Instead, they have called us here to distract from the
    horrors unfolding in Trump's DHS and to focus on one county in
    Virginia that has chosen not to join the Trump Administration's
    extreme anti-immigrant agenda. They want to shine a spotlight
    on Fairfax County, one of the safest places in the country for
    a county of its size, because they think it is a good
    opportunity to engage in their favorite sport of fearmongering
    and demagoguery.
        Mr. Descano, is there anything you have heard that you
    would like to respond to?
        Mr. Descano. Yes. Thank you, Congressman. Just I think that
    my policies have been completely misrepresented by some people
    on the Committee and on this panel. My policies are prosecution
    policies that are meant to keep my community one of the safest
    large counties in the country.
        Last, I'd like to really drive home the point that, when it
    comes to this Abdul Jalloh case, my policies are a red herring.
    ICE knew about this gentleman for at least eight years. The
    question of, if we would have been safer with him now here,
    yes, I wish ICE would have done its job in 2018 or 2019, when
    they had him.
        The idea that my policies impacted many of these cases that
    are being talked about is simply a red herring and not true.
        Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Bier, the Trump Administration
    claims that it is only going after the worst of the worst and
    targeting criminals. According to ICE's own data, the majority
    of immigrants they have detained have no criminal record. Is
    the Trump Administration really going after the worst of the
    worst?
        Mr. Bier. No, not only do 72 percent not have a criminal
    conviction and only six percent have a violent criminal
    conviction, you look at how DHS internally is classifying its
    detainees. They have multiple threat levels, three different
    threat levels, and they actually deem 72 percent of the people,
    when they have to do it internally decide, OK, we need to
    actually rank these people and prioritize. Who do need to be
    detain? Seventy-two percent of the people entered and booked
    into ICE custody were not deemed a threat. It's according to
    their documents, their own analysis from the Department of
    Homeland Security under Secretary Noem, who put out this
    information.
        No, they are not going after public safety threats. That's
    totally wrong. They're going after people going to work.
    They're racially profiling Americans, as I said. They're even
    arresting legal immigrants, and again, setting them up for
    arrest by not processing their applications.
        Joseph Edlow, who is the head of USCIS, has a policy.
    They're just going to shut down processing of the vast majority
    of green cards. That results in people losing status and
    enables ICE to go out and arrest them, legal immigrants being
    arrested because the Department of Homeland Security doesn't do
    its job.
        Mr. Nadler. Professor Stoever, do you have any recent
    examples where victims or witnesses of crimes were afraid to
    interact with law enforcement? What happened in those cases?
        Ms. Stoever. It's incredibly common now that there's just
    an absolute fear of interacting with law enforcement, and even
    seeking civil protection orders, the civil remedies. It's not
    only a fear of increasing.
        What ends up happening if people aren't seeking help, then,
    also, I want to add to the conversation that benefits, public
    benefits, CHIP, SNAP, have been cutoff to legal immigrants and
    those who hold the temporary status. Really, what's happening
    is that the abuse is continuing and the people's financial
    security is weakening. What we have is greater crime.
        Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Bier, can you explain why civil
    immigration detainers are unlawful under the Fourth Amendment?
        Mr. Bier. Well, you can't hold someone unless you have
    probable cause and a court order. This is not--
        Mr. McClintock. Once again, the gentleman's time has
    expired. A brief response. You can pick it up on the next
    question.
        Mr. Bier. There are multiple appeals court decisions on
    this. You cannot detain someone based on a civil detainer
    that's not based on a court order.
        If Fairfax gets a court order, they will detain them, but
    without a judicial order, they don't have authority under the
    Constitution to detain people.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
        Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman doesn't have any time to
    yield back. Mr. Fry?
        Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to yield to the--
        Mr. Nadler. I yielded it, nonetheless.
        Mr. Fry. I'm going to yield to the Chair in a second.
        This is actually a remarkable hearing, what I have
    witnessed today, both from the sheriff and the Commonwealth's
    Attorney. The inability, or the unwillingness to prosecute
    crimes that are committed in your jurisdiction, is almost a
    fireable offense. I hope that the good people of Virginia
    remove you from office.
        Criminals are back out on the streets in Fairfax County
    because you want to virtue signal public safety, and you are
    making communities less safe. In fact, we have a bill called
    Logan's Law. You would be a poster child. Because I bet, if we
    stacked up your plea deals and your dropped charges against
    other real prosecutors in the country, what it would show is
    that you are actually operating like a public defender and not
    a prosecutor.
        With that, Mr. Chair, I yield you the balance of my time.
        Chair Jordan. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Mr.
    Attorney General, let me ask you a few things here.
        Well, first, in your distinguished career, Attorney
    General, and you were in the assembly before that. Before all
    that, you were a prosecutor yourself, is that right?
        Mr. Miyares. That's correct.
        Chair Jordan. Yes. Is it usually a good thing if the law
    enforcement people aren't getting along with the prosecutor?
    Normally, it is better if they get along and they are working
    together to keep the bad guys off the street and protect the
    community.
        Mr. Miyares. No question, it's a cooperative arrangement.
        Chair Jordan. Yes. In your time as a prosecutor, I doubt
    maybe you did, but I doubt it with your distinguished career
    that you ever had your chief law enforcement, in whatever
    jurisdiction you were prosecutor, I doubt if you ever had them
    say, ``It's shameful the way this prosecutor is not
    prosecuting.'' Did that ever happen to you, Mr. Attorney
    General?
        Mr. Miyares. No, we never had what happened with the
    Fairfax Police Chief saying,

              What bothers me about this case is the fact that this
            absolutely could have been prevented.

              Stephanie Minter should be alive right now, and she's not
            because Steve Descano's office chose to release him back in the
            public.

    No, that's never happened in my career.
        Chair Jordan. Yes, it doesn't happen in most places where
    you have a prosecutor who works with law enforcement to keep
    the bad guys off the street.
        Now, let's get back to this policy issue that Mr. Descano
    was talking about. He says what he said to the voters when he
    was running for the job, that doesn't really count. ``I got an
    official policy. What I said to the voters, no--forget that.''
        Frankly, that is what happens with a lot of policies. I
    actually think it should be just the opposite; whatever you
    tell the voters, if they elect you, you should do what you
    said. He is doing that. He is just trying to wiggle around it
    now.
        Here's the policy: Consideration of, and this is ``County
    of Fairfax, Commonwealth Attorney Procedure Memorandum, 12/15/
    2020,'' Policy Title: ``Guidelines for Plea Bargaining,
    Charging Decisions, and Sentencing.'' Authorizing Signature:
    Steve Descano.
        Here's what it says on point 14, Mr. Attorney General:
    ``Consideration of immigration consequences. Assistant
    Commonwealth Attorneys shall consider,'' we all know--we are in
    this business of writing laws ``may'' and ``shall'' are two
    different words. Right? ``Shall'' means you have got to look at
    this stuff.
        He puts a little other thing ``shall consider immigration
    consequences, where possible, where doing so accords with
    justice'' all that stuff. It is not a ``may''; it is a
    ``shall.''
        That is their policy. Do you agree with that, Mr. Attorney
    General?
        Mr. Miyares. That is their policy, yes, Mr. Chair.
        Chair Jordan. Do you believe that has impacted the decision
    to let these bad guys on the street who did terrible things?
    Again, Ms. Minter is beside you. Her daughter--
        Mr. Miyares. Just between 2022-2024, Mr. Descano dropped
    the charges on Mr. Jalloh of trespassing, malicious wounding,
    theft, petty larceny, trespassing, disorderly conduct, and
    malicious wounding.
        Chair Jordan. That is like seven crimes, right?
        Mr. Miyares. Correct.
        Chair Jordan. Now, here's what I want to know. Maybe your
    office, Mr. Descano, is willing to give us this information
    because you said, ``Oh, no, immigration status'' my last time,
    you said immigration status had no determination on the
    decision relative to Mr. Morales-Ortez.
        I want to know in cases where it did, what were the cases
    where you changed the plea agreement or you changed the
    charging decision that were based on consideration of their
    immigration status?
        If you say this doesn't matter anymore; ``We took it down
    off the website. I didn't really believe what I told the
    voters,'' if that is the case, I want to know, did you ever use
    immigration status as a reason to impact the sentence and the
    charging decision or plea agreement?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir--
        Chair Jordan. Can you get us that information? That's what
    I'm asking. Just give us that information. I want to know what
    are the cases where we took into account this individual's
    immigration status and we changed the charging decision. Can
    you give us those cases?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I don't have those cases with me.
        Chair Jordan. Well imagine that--
        Mr. Descano. I'd love to talk to you about the policy
    because I think it's been--
        Chair Jordan. You don't have those cases with you? Is it a
    significant number?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, if I may dig into the policy, I
    think it will be illustrious.
        Chair Jordan. No, I asked you about the cases. I want to
    know the number of times you look into there, because here's
    what everyone sees. You are trying to say it is not the case.
    Everyone sees you have got an American citizen who does a
    crime. You have got an illegal immigrant who does the exact
    same crime. Your policy strong it seems to me says that this
    person will get a different sentence or a different plea
    agreement than the American citizen.
        Mr. Descano. It absolutely--
        Chair Jordan. I want to know if that ever happened.
        Mr. Descano. It absolutely says in the policy in black and
    white that an immigrant will not get a better outcome than a
    U.S. citizen. That is in the policy. That's later. You read
    one-half sentence, sir. This is a two-paragraph policy.
        Chair Jordan. Well, here's what again, let's go back to the
    website you took down.
        Mr. McClintock. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, the
    gentleman's time has expired.
        Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. I yield.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Tiffany?
        Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
        I want to thank Ms. Minter for the verse that she read at
    the end of her testimony. It was moving and thank you so much
    for that. Thank you so much for sharing the memories of your
    daughter with us with those pictures. I'm just sorry that there
    are not going to be more pictures for us to be able to see in
    the future. Wishing you the very best.
        In Wisconsin Mr. Miyares, I have got a question for you at
    the end of a couple of sentences here. In Wisconsin, we had a
    terrible situation. It sounds like it is like Fairfax. In Dane
    County, which is Madison, Wisconsin, they have the same thing.
    They have sanctuary policies.
        An illegal Venezuelan immigrant, known gang member, was let
    free, and then, later arrested. He was later arrested over 100
    miles away in the town of Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin. He was
    charged with domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse,
    and strangulation.
        Doesn't this make it very clear that these sanctuary
    policies they affect all of us, whether it is in our State, our
    region, whatever. About all the people that come from our great
    State of Wisconsin that visit Washington, DC. It seems to me
    that Fairfax County not very far away that this could be a
    problem for people who live all over the country, just like
    this example where Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, refused to
    remove someone who went on to strangle someone. Isn't this a
    really big problem that is being created that does not just
    affect places like Dane County, Wisconsin, and Fairfax County,
    Virginia?
        Mr. Miyares. It is a massive problem, Congressman. If you
    meet with victims, as I have through the years, the one thing a
    victim will tell you they want--they do not want to become is
    just a number, just a statistic.
        It has been cited, some of the Fairfax public safety
    numbers, but at the end of the day, every victim their life is
    changed from the date of the offense, when they have lost their
    loved one. It absolutely affects.
        What's amazing about this is that, in counties where you
    actually have say Bedford County in Virginia with Sheriff
    Miller, a great sheriff, and Wes Nance, a great Commonwealth's
    Attorney; they don't get these headlines. They don't get these
    headlines because they actually cooperate with Federal
    immigration authorities.
        What happens in Fairfax is they're making a conscious
    decision, and you're seeing it over and over again. It's not
    just a failure to cooperate with Federal immigration
    authorities. It is a conscious decision by Steve Descano to
    under-prosecute crimes over and over again.
        People, I pointed out what happened when a judge told ICE
    that they had to release him because they were not allowed to
    deport him to Sierra Leone. The reality is this was so
    preventable, because multiple times he was arrested multiple
    times. This prosecutor had the policy of under-prosecuting and
    dropping charge. It's not just this case. It's multiple cases.
    He has made a conscious decision.
        I'm a little incredulous he has decided to say: Well, the
    promises I made to the campaign, when I was campaigning voters,
    they don't really count.
        I'm a firm believer, let your ``yes'' be yes; your ``no''
    be no. It's not what you say; it's what you do.
        He may claim this has no impact on his charging decisions,
    but if you look at time and time again and I can go through the
    cases, and so can Mr. Kennedy there is a volume of cases where
    he has made a conscious decision to under-prosecute and,
    essentially, treat illegal immigrants with greater deference
    than he would an American citizen who is charged with a crime.
        Mr. Tiffany. Is there a correlation with the crime
    statistics being done? I was looking at some yesterday that
    came out of the Judiciary Committee where it was 67 of the
    largest municipalities here in America, the decrease in a year
    was, like, 236 fewer murders in the United States. Think about
    it: Compared to the previous year, there is a reduction that
    there's 236 more people that are alive in America as a result
    of this. Is there a correlation with this securing our border
    and those places that choose to be tough on crime? Do you think
    there's a correlation?
        Mr. Miyares. No question. Because I do think sanctuary
    policies also create a magnet for groups. If you look at, say,
    Fairfax County, it's estimated, roughly, 200,000 illegal aliens
    are in Fairfax. If you look right next door to Loudoun, it's
    about 25,000. Why? MS-13 and TD and other transnational gangs
    understand that they are in a sanctuary, that they can operate
    with impunity. They, then, reside in Fairfax, and oftentimes,
    are committing their crimes all over
        Mr. Tiffany. Fairfax and Dane County, Wisconsin, they are
    actually magnets for for violent illegal aliens?
        Mr. Miyares. Correct. They know they can go there, and if
    they're picked up on a charge, they know they have local
    government in this case, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors has
    passed the Trust Policy, which is an explicit prohibition on
    cooperation. They know this; they're not dumb. They know which
    localities open the doors to them and which localities
    cooperate with Federal authorities.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Knott?
        Mr. Knott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Minter, I'm so sorry.
    This is, clearly, a preventable crime, despite what has been
    said. As the father of two daughters, I can't imagine what
    you're going through, what you will go through. Candidly, I
    would not be acting as civilly with some of the people you are
    seated with, had I suffered what you have had to endure. Thank
    you for being here.
        Mr. Descano, you said that, quote, ``We prosecute Virginia
    cases.'' Is that correct?
        Mr. Descano. That is correct, yes.
        Mr. Knott. You painted a picture of being rigorous in your
    efforts to prosecute bad people. Correct?
        Mr. Descano. Yes. When we prosecute, of course, we take a
    look at every case.
        Mr. Knott. Yes.
        Mr. Descano. We are constrained by the evidence.
        Mr. Knott. Yes.
        Mr. Descano. We are constrained by the law. I will tell
    you, Congressman, what is happening here with the number of
    cases that we're talking about are there's so much.
        Mr. Knott. I want to talk to you about one of those cases.
    I want to talk to you about one of those cases, sir.
        Mr. Descano. Sir--
        Mr. Knott. Mr. Hyrum Rodriguez. Do you remember that case?
        Mr. Descano. I do.
        Mr. Knott. Leading up to the crime that I want to talk
    about, the defendant's criminal history included multiple
    charges and arrests for indecent liberties, exposing himself to
    a child, exposing himself to a child less than 15 years of age,
    disorderly conduct, illegally entering a property to damage,
    burglary. He was even sentenced albeit, I would say, too
    lightly while he was on probation, while he was under court
    supervision.
        On June 15, 2023, at four o'clock in the morning, Fairfax
    County PD responded to a burglary in process. A mother and her
    four-year-old daughter were asleep in the same room, but in
    separate beds. The mother was awoken when her four-year-old
    daughter was screaming in the next room. She went to
    investigate. The attacker dropped the four-year-old and fled
    the scene. It was clear that the four-year-old had been
    abducted from her bed. Her buttocks had been grabbed. Her torso
    had been bruised. The victim displayed immediate bruising. The
    mother did not see the attacker's face, but the four-year-old
    said he was a, quote, ``big man.''
        Law enforcement identified Mr. Rodriguez in two ways.
    First, Forensics recovered a finger and palm print from the
    window that he jarred open in this case and matched footprints
    outside the house where he was standing with a mud print inside
    the house.
        Second, Eyewitness testimony later identified Rodriguez as
    having been loitering for days outside this apartment building.
    He had been seen using drugs in the neighborhood, and he had
    been pacing around this particular unit in the days leading up
    to the crime.
        Police secured two warrants. First, statutory burglary,
    specifically alleging that Rodriguez entered an occupied
    dwelling, seizing a four-year-old with the intent to commit
    murder, rape, robbery, or arson. The maximum penalty is 20
    years. Second, abduction of a four-year-old with the intent to
    defile such person was the second charge, with a maximum
    penalty of life.
        Once it was handed over to your office, inexplicably so,
    you immediately reduced the burglary offense to a misdemeanor,
    which capped the sentence at 12 months. You then reduced the
    abduction charge to an offense that was a lower degree and
    capped the sentence at 10 years.
        When you entered into a plea agreement, you tried to bind
    the court, they could not sentence this person to any term over
    two years. Is that not correct?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I'm so glad you brought this case up
    because--
        Mr. Knott. Is that not correct?
        Mr. Descano. Well, because I would like to explain, sir.
        Mr. Knott. It is correct. The court rejected it.
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I know the case file--
        Mr. Knott. This was a--
        Mr. Descano. I would love to talk to you about--
        Mr. Knott. I'm talking. It was a judge that was appointed
    by Senator Warner.
        Mr. Descano. You are assuming--Sir--
        Mr. Knott. This is not a Right-wing judge. This is a
    liberal judge. Do you know why he rejected it?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I would love to talk about the case--
        Mr. Knott. He saw what you should have seen. He cited
    overwhelming evidence--
        Mr. Descano. Can we talk about the evidence, sir?
        Mr. Knott. --that this person was a threat--
        Mr. Descano. Because I know it and you don't.
        Mr. Knott. Quit talking.
        Mr. Descano. I would love to tell you about it.
        Mr. Knott. This person was a threat. He yanked a four-year-
    old girl out of her bed with the intent to harm her. You wanted
    to give him a cap of two years.
        Mr. Descano. Sir, this is a great example--
        Mr. Knott. Then, when the plea agreement was rejected, what
    did you do?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, this is a great example--
        Mr. Knott. What did you do?
        Mr. Descano. This is a great example of a case where--
        Mr. Knott. I have prosecuted--I have prosecuted cases--
        Mr. Descano. Then, you understand cases that don't have
    strong evidence--
        Mr. Knott. When you're evading like that, do you know what
    that's a sign of? Guilt. What did you do? You dismissed the
    case.
        Mr. Descano. Sir, can I please talk to you--
        Mr. Knott. Mr. Descano, when you dismiss be quiet--
        Mr. Descano. --about this case, if you want to know about
    it so much?
        Mr. Knott. When you dismiss a case, what happens to that
    defendant?
        Mr. Miyares. He walks free.
        Mr. Knott. He walks free. A disgusting, perverted
    individual preying on children, that you dismissed the case. As
    the father of two young girls one of them is five that is as
    shameful as anything I have seen.
        Mr. Descano. I have a daughter, too, sir.
        Mr. Knott. Quit defending the indefensible.
        Mr. Descano. Don't--please don't talk to me, that I don't
    care about people in my community.
        Mr. Knott. You, clearly, don't.
        Mr. Descano. Absolutely not.
        Mr. Knott. You dismissed the case, and it's shameful.
    You're a coward. You are a coward.
        Mr. Descano. Sir, you won't even let me talk to you about
    the case, sir.
        Mr. Knott. It's indefensible, sir. I yield back.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Gill?
        Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing on
    a really important issue that a lot of Americans care very
    deeply about.
        Mr. Descano, I want to start with you. I have got a couple
    of questions for you.
        I have got a document titled, ``Guidelines for Plea
    Bargaining, Charging Decisions, and Sentencing.'' It states
    that,

            Prosecutors shall consider the collateral immigration
            consequences of the specific crimes the defendant is charged
            with and the detrimental impact that the deportation/removal
            has on the families and communities [that] those removed will
            leave behind.

        This document is your official policy. This is not from
    your campaign website. This is the official policy document as
    well. Is that correct? Do you recognize this?
        Mr. Descano. Yes. You read a portion of the policy, sir.
        Mr. Gill. That's right. I'm not going to read the full
    thing since it's quite long.
        Mr. Descano. Oh, I don't expect you to, sir.
        Mr. Gill. It's about 11 pages. It's about 11 pages. I'm not
    going to read the full thing.
        I want to better understand how you weigh an illegal
    alien's immigration status whenever you are making charging
    decisions. Do you know who Ander Jose Cortez-Mendez is? Are you
    familiar with that case?
        Mr. Descano. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Gill. OK. This is a Guatemalan illegal alien who was
    arrested in March 2024. He was initially charged with, quote,
    ``carnal knowledge'' of a 13-14-year-old.
        Just for those of us who aren't lawyers, can you describe
    just very briefly what does ``carnal knowledge'' of a 13-14-
    year-old mean in this context?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, generally, a charge like that
    would, typically, refer to underage sex.
        Mr. Gill. OK. He raped an underage person. An illegal alien
    who raped an underage American. Your office reduced those
    charges to a misdemeanor charge of consensual sex with a child
    15 years and older. You offered him a 90-day suspended jail
    sentence, is that correct?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, based on the evidence that we had in the
    case--
        Mr. Gill. It is correct?
        Mr. Descano. It's not related to the policy, sir.
        Mr. Gill. That is correct? I just want to ask you, whenever
    you were making that charging decision to reduce the charge,
    how did you weigh the defendant's immigration status?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, I'll to be clear, I was not the
    lead prosecutor in that case.
        Mr. Gill. It was your office.
        Mr. Descano. Oh, absolutely, sir. I, of course, rely on my
    team of 50-some attorneys to do cases.
        Mr. Gill. Sure.
        Mr. Descano. What is important is that, oftentimes, as you
    know, sir, as a prosecutor, we're constrained by the evidence.
    We are constrained by--
        Mr. Gill. I just need to know, how did you take into
    account the defendant's immigration status in making that
    decision?
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, again, I'm saying--
        Mr. Gill. How did your office make that determination?
        Mr. Descano. I you're, you're--well, what I would say is
    that--and thank you for clarifying for you to take a look at
    the immigration consequences policy, or when you see--
        Mr. Gill. Let me ask it a different way. Did your office
    reduce charges against this illegal alien from a felony rape
    charge to a misdemeanor charge with a 90-day suspended jail
    sentence, in part, because this was an illegal alien in
    question?
        Mr. Descano. No, this was evidentiary-based.
        Mr. Gill. It was evidence there was no it had nothing to do
    with the defendant's immigration status?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, when--
        Mr. Gill. Is that your testimony?
        Mr. Descano. If you read the policy, you'll see that it
    explicitly carves out--
        Mr. Gill. Did it have anything to do with the defendant's
    immigration status? It's just yes or no.
        Mr. Descano. Well, sir, it was based on the evidence.
        Mr. Gill. I'm asking you, was their immigration status part
    of the evidence? It's a yes or no.
        Mr. Descano. I don't believe so.
        Mr. Gill. You don't believe so? Your policy says that you
    ``shall consider'' the immigration status.
        Mr. Descano. Actually, sir, if you actually read the whole
    policy, it explicitly carves out cases--
        Mr. Gill. Quote,

            Prosecutors shall consider the collateral immigration
            consequences of the specific crime(s) the defendant is charged
            with and the detrimental impact that deportation/removal has on
            the families.

        Mr. Descano. It also mentions that--
        Mr. Gill. Line for line--
        Mr. Descano. --it's not outcome-determinative. It also
    explicitly states--
        Mr. Gill. I understand, and I'm asking you if you weighed,
    your office weighed, the defendant's immigration status in
    making your charging decisions here.
        Mr. Descano. Oh, again, sir, I was not, the lead
    prosecutor--
        Mr. Gill. I'm asking about your office. I understand you're
    not the lead prosecutor.
        Mr. Descano. Exactly. I just want to be clear. The way that
    the policy is written that case should not have fallen under
    the rubric of this policy. This is a narrow policy, and it's
    meant to be a narrow policy.
        Mr. Gill. He is an illegal alien. I think that would
    qualify, would it not?
        Mr. Descano. Well, no, sir, because, again, the way that
    the policy is being presented as, it is as it is outcome-
    determinative, goes to every case.
        Mr. Gill. There would be immigration consequences based on
    what charge you bring. That would clearly apply to this case.
        Mr. Descano. No, sir. Again, that's the reason why I
    mentioned earlier you read a portion, but not the entire two
    paragraphs of this subheading.
        Mr. Gill. ``Prosecutors shall consider.'' I just want to
    know, just give me a yes-or-no answer. Did you take into
    account the defendant's immigration status?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, again, I was not but the way the policy--
        Mr. Gill. Did your office take into--
        Mr. Descano. The way the policy is written--
        Mr. Gill. It's a yes-or-no question.
        Mr. Descano. No, they should not have taken--
        Mr. Gill. They should not have taken?
        Mr. Descano. That's not outcome-determinative in a case
    like this, sir.
        Mr. Gill. Great. Thank you. My time is up.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Grothman?
        Mr. Grothman. Yes, I had another hearing. I apologize if
    I'm asking a question that has already been asked.
        Obviously, we have immigration laws in this country. Every
    country has immigration laws. We have 800,000 people, about,
    naturalized in this country every year. We are right now in a
    position in which one out of six Americans in this country are
    foreign-born, one out of six people in this country, which is
    the all-time high. Nobody could say that, under current law, we
    are not more than generous with people who want to come here.
        Nevertheless, there's some people who I can only--unless
    they are very foolish, they are trying to destroy the country
    by, in addition to the 800,000 people getting sworn in, want to
    let unlimited other people in the country.
        Now, my first question is for Sheriff Kincaid. I hear from
    my local sheriffs in Wisconsin, if there's any activity from
    Federal agents--FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals, and Secret
    Service, they always contact, the Federal agency or they call
    them, to coordinate with them. Maybe setting up a perimeter, or
    maybe if they have to remove somebody, take them to the local
    jail.
        We are told and that would seem to be automatic as an
    American. Nevertheless, we are told, Sheriff Kincaid, that your
    office sometimes is reluctant to assist Federal agencies in
    ongoing investigations intended to safeguard citizens. How do
    you respond to that charge?
        Sheriff Kincaid. First and foremost, we never obstruct ICE.
    As a matter of fact, we work with them in three or four more
    ways. When they request or call and ask for assistance,
    especially when it comes to turning someone over, we coordinate
    that with them to ensure their safety. As far as not
    cooperating with them, we do. We do that all the time, just
    like any other law enforcement agency.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. Does Virginia law explicitly authorize
    compliance with ICE detainers within five days of a criminal
    alien's release from your custody?
        Sheriff Kincaid. Based on the judicial or the
    administrative warrant, there is law that allows for us to turn
    an individual over to ICE five times prior to when they are set
    to be released.
        Mr. Grothman. Do you?
        Sheriff Kincaid. ICE does know that.
        Mr. Grothman. Yes, and you--
        Sheriff Kincaid. We do.
        Mr. Grothman. You do? OK. Has your office conducted an
    audit of what happens to individuals you have released instead
    of honoring ICE detainers, or do you always honor the
    detainers?
        Sheriff Kincaid. In terms, we honor detainers. It is when
    we are presented with a judicial warrant that we will continue
    to detain somebody because it's authorized by a judge.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. Mr. Miyares, can you give a high-level
    overview of the findings of your September 2025, investigation
    into Fairfax County's the Fairfax County Commonwealth's
    Attorney's Office?
        Mr. Miyares. Yes, sir. We conducted one and saw that, in
    our opinion, Mr. Descano views himself more as a social worker
    than a prosecutor. That as a result, he has systematic failed
    the victims in Fairfax County. We talk to so many, not just
    those and including victims that were immigrants, but everyday
    citizens that have felt that the Fairfax County Commonwealth's
    Attorney's Office had failed them.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. Could you respond, or do you agree with
    everything Sheriff Kincaid has told you?
        Mr. Miyares. I do find it curious, what we have is they
    keep trying to say they need a judicial warrant. As you know,
    DHS and others said that is not required in this case.
        What you've seen, actually, in Virginia, disturbingly, is
    that we just had our current Governor pass an Executive Order,
    her first one, EO 1, that banned cooperation with Federal
    immigration authorities, not just with the State police,
    overturning Governor Youngkin's policies, but also the
    Department of Corrections. In other words, someone that is a
    convicted felon in a Virginia prison, even then. You are seeing
    a lot of bad policies from Fairfax being brought statewide.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. That's kind of shocking. I guess, if you
    would elaborate on it a little bit, and what would happen in
    this country if--or what effect that has on people who are here
    illegally and are illegally committing crimes?
        Mr. Miyares. We, as a Nation, allow, roughly, one-million
    legal immigrants a year. We are a good, decent, and generous
    people. That's who we are. I'm the child of an immigrant.
        What Americans do not like is be seen that they're being
    taken advantage of. During the Biden Administration, between 8-
    10 million illegal immigrants came into this country. That is
    larger than the population of 32 U.S. States. That is not
    tenable. People are not doing it the right way.
        There is not a country on the planet that is as generous
    with legal immigration as we are. It's not even close. What we
    don't appreciate right now are people that are cutting in line
    and breaking our laws. It's something we all learned in grade
    school. We have too many policymakers who decided that's OK and
    they shrug their shoulders. They turned a blind eye.
        In this case, Steve Descano deciding to adopt policies,
    taking someone's illegal immigration status and under-
    prosecuting cases, in which we're seeing the tragic results, as
    we're seeing today.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms.
    Scanlon?
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I practiced alongside
    immigration attorneys for a period of time before coming to
    Congress, so have a sense of just how broken our immigration
    system is and how hard it is, even for people who are trying to
    follow the rules, to actually follow the rules. A lot of the
    conversation we have in Congress seems to come from folks who
    don't understand how the system is actually working, or not
    working.
        If our Republican colleagues want to talk about who and
    what is making Americans less safe today, it is this White
    House and its chaos and its reckless mass deportation agenda.
    Families and communities are being torn apart. Citizens have
    been ripped from their homes with no warrants in cases of
    mistaken identity. Federal agents have shot and killed
    Americans in our streets for daring to question their unlawful
    tactics.
        The White House has prioritized meeting deportation quotas,
    and in doing so, has targeted all immigrants, including those
    who have followed our rules and who, until this administration
    changed the rules, those folks were in our country legally.
        The majority of folks who have been detained by ICE have no
    criminal record here or in their home countries. That is
    according to the agency's own data. While ICE and CBP claim to
    be ``claim'' to be focusing on the worst of the worst, instead
    they have gone after toddlers with Spider-Man backpacks,
    parents taking their kids to school or to the hospital for
    cancer treatment, hardworking people showing up at work,
    spouses of military veterans and active duty service members,
    and law-abiding people who are showing up for their interviews
    and court hearings, as they are following the rules to do what
    they need to do to become citizens or obtain other forms of
    legal status.
        Who does any of this make more safe? Aside from the trauma
    and the heartbreak that these policies have inflicted on
    individual families and communities, the damage to our economy
    is mounting by the day.
        That damage comes from companies rethinking their
    investments in the United States, because they see their
    citizens, their folks, getting abused by our immigration
    agents.
        Tourists who have decided not to visit Disney World or
    celebrate our 250th Anniversary or attend the World Cup this
    year. We have seen bookings from overseas are down 20-30
    percent across the country, but we are particularly sensitive
    to it in Philadelphia.
        We are seeing physicians, researchers, and students from
    around the world who have been deterred from bringing their
    talents and what they can bring to our country by additional
    visa fees, and by the risks of being targeted by misguided
    immigration agents.
        Throughout our country's history, immigrants have been
    drawn here by the promise of America and its brighter future.
    They bring meaningful contributions to our economy, our
    culture, our social fabric in all our communities.
        We should be fixing our outdated, broken immigration system
    to make it better and more efficient, not undermining it or
    just trying to gut it entirely. Because failing to do that work
    is a huge disservice to all us and to the future success of our
    Nation.
        Our Republican colleagues have tried to say this is about
    fighting crime, but in pursuit of this Administration's
    indiscriminate crackdown, they are diverting Federal law
    enforcement, prosecutors, and resources away from serious
    threats, including child exploitation, fentanyl trafficking,
    and domestic terrorism.
        This is really misguided. It seems to be entirely about
    politics and not about actual safety.
        Mr. Descano, in the few seconds we have left, is there
    anything you would like to add? Because you seem like you have
    been a very practical and engaged public servant.
        Mr. Descano. Well, thank you, Congresswoman, and there are
    a few things I would love to add.
        First, let me be clear. My policy that we're talking about
    was written with legal permanent residents in mind for minor
    crimes. It was based off the Padilla v. Kentucky U.S. Supreme
    Court case that said it is a good idea for prosecutors and
    defense attorneys to take into account and to know collateral
    immigration consequences.
        The other thing I'd like to say is, Mr. Miyares and Mr.
    Kennedy, they've never been to my office. They've never seen
    the case files that I've seen. They jump to a bunch of
    conclusions--
        [Mr. McClintock gavels for order.]
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. I will
    let you finish that sentence.
        Mr. Descano. Thank you, sir. They jump to conclusions about
    case outcomes that we may not be thrilled about and give them
    and ascribe reasons that simply aren't the reasons.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Mr. Onder?
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Descano, in your
    written testimony, you wrote, ``The system failed Ms. Minter.''
    Do you consider yourself part of that failure?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, I do believe that the entire system did
    fail. I will tell you that I wish that there were things that
    we could have done and had the things to go forward--with on
    some of those cases.
        Mr. Onder. OK. You said that. OK. Did the police fail Ms.
    Minter?
        Mr. Descano. No, sir. I think what the--
        Mr. Onder. Did Sheriff Kincaid fail Ms. Minter?
        Mr. Descano. No, sir, but I think that--
        Mr. Onder. Everyone failed Ms. Minter. The system failed
    the amorphous system, not you; you, a soft-on-crime Soros
    prosecutor; not you who does not honor ICE detainers. Neither
    of you believe in honoring ICE civil detainers, no judicial
    detainers that in most cases are not even possible to obtain.
        Ms. Minter, do you feel the system failed you and your
    daughter Stephanie?
        Ms. Minter. [Ms. Minter nods her head in the affirmative.]
        Mr. Onder. Yes. Do you feel, Ms. Minter, that you can opine
    or not, if you don't do you feel that Mr. Descano's
    prosecutor's officer hears victims?
        Ms. Minter. Hears victims?
        Mr. Onder. Takes victims into account, and potential
    victims?
        Ms. Minter. No.
        Mr. Onder. Because, based on the policies of Fairfax
    County, both the sheriff's office and the prosecutor's office,
    what happened to you and your family was entirely preventable.
        Ms. Minter. I believe it was.
        Mr. Onder. Yes. When you have the policy of not cooperating
    with ICE by the way, in violation of Federal law these things
    are going to happen. People who should not have been in the
    United States of America at all, criminal illegal aliens, in
    our solicitousness, to appease the radical Left base of the
    Democrat Party and their open borders policies, it is a policy
    we don't want to deport anyone.
        Mr. Descano even said it on his campaign website. ``Well,
    that's not really the policy of the Fairfax County's County
    Prosecutor's Office.'' OK. Were you lying to the voters or are
    you lying to us now today?
        Ms. Minter. What I believe is that these vicious criminals,
    the criminals that keep hurting our people should not be out of
    here. They need to be deported. You know what? I don't think it
    has to do with ICE--
        Mr. Onder. Right.
        Ms. Minter. It has to do with having--we're nowhere. We're
    not a country without illegals coming in--
        Mr. Onder. Without--
        Ms. Minter. --and without people coming in from other
    countries. That's what our country is built on.
        Mr. Onder. There is no such thing as a sovereign Nation
    without secure borders. Well, thank you. No, thank you, and
    thank you for your courage being here today.
        Yes, it is nice to give lip service, ``Oh, the system
    failed you, Ms. Minter.'' It is another thing to do something
    about it, especially when the radical base of your party
    doesn't want you to do anything about it. We know that two
    elected officials to your Left today, we know where they sided.
    Did they side with victims, or did they side with their radical
    left, open borders base? We know the answer to that.
        Mr. Bier, you implied in that somehow, because the United
    States is so dysfunctional regarding legal immigration, that
    this somehow encourages illegal immigration. In some way, I may
    believe that.
        I want to give you some numbers. In 2024, the United States
    admitted it gave 1.36 million to foreign nationals green cards;
    226,000 family sponsored visas; 150,000 employment-based visas;
    and 52,000 diversity legal lottery visas. In early 2026, there
    was an asylum backlog of 3.5 million cases. Mid-2025, temporary
    protected status backlog, 1.2 million cases.
        Mr. Miyares said--and I think I got this right, ``there's
    no country on this planet that's more generous to legal
    immigrants than the United States of America.''
        If the numbers I read to you, Mr. Bier, are not enough,
    what is the right number? Because, roughly a billion people on
    this planet live on $2 or less per day, and I imagine quite a
    few of them would like to immigrate to the United States. What
    is that number? Is there a number? Should all the billion be
    able to immigrate into the United States legally or illegally?
        Mr. Bier. Well, the United States ranks in the bottom
    third--
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Bier,
    I will give you a few seconds to respond.
        Mr. Bier. The United States ranks at the bottom third of
    wealthy countries for its foreign-born share of the population,
    for the rate at which it admits people. We're a very large
    country, and we have 338 million in here.
        Mr. Onder. So, the goal is--
        Mr. Bier. One million people is a third of a percent of the
    population. That's half of what it was in the early 20th
    century, and we survived that and thrived as a result of it.
        Yes, we can allow more legal immigration to the United
    States. We should have processes that are fair, that allow
    people an opportunity to come, and protect our rights as
    Americans to associate and contract trade with the people born
    in other countries.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Bier, you--
        Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
    expired.
        Mr. Onder. I yield back my negative time.
        Mr. McClintock. The gentleman's time has expired. Now, I
    will recognize myself for five minutes.
        Oh, we have got a unanimous consent request. Ms. Jayapal?
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I seek unanimous consent
    to enter into the record an opinion piece from our Seattle City
    Attorney entitled, ``Seattle's Welcoming City Policies Keep Us
    Safe.''
        Mr. McClintock. Without objection. I will now recognize
    myself for five minutes.
        Mr. Descano, in the case of Mr. Rodriguez whose charges you
    dropped, in the case of the four-year-old who was attacked in
    her own bedroom, I understand he was later taken into custody
    by ICE and deported. I'm just curious, did you notify ICE of
    that release, so that they could deport him? Was it the little
    girl's mother who had to call ICE to get him out of your
    community?
        Mr. Descano. Sir, we did not call ICE.
        Mr. McClintock. The mother had to call ICE to get him out
    of your community.
        Mr. Miyares, we keep hearing from Sheriff Kincaid, among
    others, that they would be happy to respond to a Federal
    judicial warrant to honor a detainer request. Well, is a
    Federal judicial warrant possible to obtain in a State crime?
        Mr. Miyares. No, it's not, and they know this.
        Mr. McClintock. If deportation is a civil matter, how does
    one get a Federal judicial warrant?
        Mr. Miyares. You can't. Again, they know this.
        Mr. McClintock. They're basically lying to the public? They
    are counting on the public not understanding that what they are
    asking for is legally impossible?
        Mr. Miyares. It's legally impossible, yes, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. Mr. Kennedy, do you find it odd that the
    Democrats are blaming ICE for not deporting this particular
    suspect who is accused of murdering of Stephanie Minter? Yet,
    at the same time, they refuse to notify ICE, so they can deport
    such suspects, and they refuse to fund ICE, so that they can
    deport such suspects.
        Mr. Kennedy. I do find it odd, but I'm actually going to
    extend agreement to the Democratic side, because I believe that
    Mr. Jalloh should never have been deported whatsoever. He
    should have spent the rest of his natural life, before
    Stephanie Minter's death, in the Virginia Department of
    Corrections. Short of that, he should have been deported to
    Sierra Leone after he served his sentence.
        None of that came about. He was never sent to prison. Mr.
    Descano said that he obtained a sentence for him for multiple
    years. He never left Fairfax County. He was never sentenced to
    prison. He spent time in jail and was released because of good
    time credits. Mr. Jalloh should have spent the rest of his life
    in prison, then, been deported.
        Mr. McClintock. Understood. I actually have to go on. We
    keep hearing these sanctuary policies enhance public safety.
    What have your studies shown?
        Mr. Kennedy. That these aren't the same thing. Every single
    person who is injured or is the victim of a property crime, a
    person crime, let alone a homicide, it was a completely
    preventable homicide. It was a completely preventable crime.
    These are all excess things that didn't have to happen.
        When it comes to repeat offenders, I identify in my
    testimony 25 incidents--25 and half of them are unknown to the
    rest of the public--
        Mr. McClintock. That is including--
        Mr. Kennedy. --where escalating violence occurred
    escalating violence.
        Mr. McClintock. That is including three out of seven
    homicides in Fairfax County.
        The Center for Immigration Studies looked at the SCAAP
    documentation from States seeking reimbursement for illegal
    aliens held in their State prisons. They found that illegal
    aliens are, typically, at least three times as likely to be
    incarcerated than citizens or lawfully present aliens.
        Mr. Miyares, the Democrats say this is all necessary to get
    illegal immigrants to report crimes. In fact, if an alien is
    the witness to or a victim of a crime, don't they qualify for a
    U visa to remain in this country under current law?
        Mr. Miyares. Well, I don't think it builds community trust,
    either, when you see a catch-and-release program being
    instituted by this Commonwealth's Attorney's Office. That does
    not build trust for you to come forward to testify.
        Mr. McClintock. Someone is not going to report a crime if
    they know that criminal is going to be back on the streets
    later that afternoon to take vengeance. Is that correct?
        Mr. Miyares. That is correct. What you've seen is a
    revolving door. Every policy Mr. Descano advocates for,
    policies he's supported in the general assembly, is to allow a
    revolving door. Changing our bond policies in Virginia, and his
    own personal policies that they have in Virginia, it is to
    release criminals back into the community time and time again.
    We know from his official policy that he takes and factors in
    their immigration status as well.
        Mr. McClintock. Ironically, when these criminals are
    released back into the community, they tend to prey on the
    illegal immigrant community where they have come from, do they
    not?
        Mr. Miyares. No question.
        Mr. McClintock. We had just a case recently where a legal
    immigrant from Bangladesh had her head bashed in by an illegal
    Haitian national with a long rap sheet, who had been allowed to
    remain in this country under the TPS program.
        You mentioned that Governor Spanberger is expected to sign
    legislation that would forbid cooperation with ICE. I assume
    that would forbid notifying ICE if and when Stephanie Minter's
    killer is released?
        Mr. Miyares. Correct. Correct. He will be, presumably, in
    the Virginia Department of Corrections. Under a current
    Executive Order, as we've noted, there's a there's no
    requirement of a judicial warrant. They won't notify ICE.
    Despite all her public pronouncements--
        Mr. McClintock. Ms. Minter may I just--
        Mr. Miyares. Yes.
        Mr. McClintock. Ms. Minter, Sheriff Kincaid said that she
    didn't have her budget to make a phone call to ICE to honor a
    detainer. Does that make you feel more safe? What is your
    response to Sheriff Kincaid?
        Ms. Minter. I'm just going to start keeping a list and
    calling ICE myself. It might be easier.
        Mr. McClintock. Oh, my time is expired.
        Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Chair, I have a few more unanimous consent
    requests.
        Mr. McClintock. Go ahead.
        Ms. Jayapal. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
    record the Cato Institute, Mr. Bier's policy analysis titled,
    ``Immigrants Cut Victimization Rates and Boost Crime
    Reporting.''
        Mr. McClintock. Yes, we have seen it. Without objection.
        Ms. Jayapal. Another one titled, ``Family Says Virginia
    Domestic Violence Victim Didn't Seek Help Due to Immigration
    Fears.''
        Another one entitled, ``She Testified about Being Raped.
    Then ICE Showed Up,'' from The Atlantic.
        Mr. McClintock. Without objection
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. McClintock. If there is no further business to be
    brought before the Committee, I want to thank our witnesses for
    appearing before the Subcommittee today.
        Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
    days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
    or additional materials for the record.
        Mr. McClintock. Without objection, the hearing is adjourned
        [Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

        All materials submitted for the record by the Members of
    the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and
    Enforce-
    ment can be found at the following links: https://
    docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=119272.

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