Summer Forecast Turns ICEy in Virginia

Well, this certainly has to be chapping some deep-blue progressive…lips.

For all the posturing about blue-state governments closing off cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration arms, or just doing enough passively not to trigger any cutoff of federal funding, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its officers are continuing to move illegal aliens out of the country.

One of the biggest virtue-signalers among anti-ICE governors was incoming Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. In February, the governor directed all Virginia state police agencies to end their cooperation with federal immigration officers, ostensibly to concentrate on being better state police. This past May, the former CIA agent and now state chief executive signed legislation passed by the Virginia House that attempted to restrict federal agents from wearing certain face coverings and limited where they could perform enforcement activities on state property.

Some observers in local media saw it as wanting her progressive Democrat social justice warrior cake and eating it, too.

Spanberger’s ICE actions deepen divide with Virginia Democrats

Governor vetoes some immigration enforcement limits while signing other protections and issuing new executive order.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger within just 24 hours vetoed two legislative packages aimed at limiting federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Virginia while simultaneously signing other measures targeting masked federal agents and issuing a sweeping executive order governing how ICE officers may operate on state property. 

The mixed actions frustrated and baffled some Democratic lawmakers who argue Spanberger is sending conflicting signals on immigration enforcement and other legislative priorities during a period of growing fear surrounding ICE operations across Virginia. 

The moves highlighted the careful line Spanberger has tried to maintain during her first six months in office. She has repeatedly criticized federal immigration enforcement tactics while resisting proposals she argues could create legal conflicts, public safety concerns or unintended consequences. 

The immigration decisions came alongside a wider set of vetoes touching on legal cannabis retail, prescription drug regulation, election administration, higher education governance and criminal justice policy — angering some Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups that had expected more support from a Democratic governor.

For all of the ‘thou shalt nots’ issued by the governor and her rabid partisans in the Virginia legislative branches, not to mention their murder-fever-dream happy state attorney general, the immigration enforcement arm of the federal government just kept on truckin’ along.

DOOP DOOP DOOP

 Over 15,000 people have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the state of Virginia since President Donald Trump took office, new data shows.

Between Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025 and Aug. 5, ICE agents arrested 15,709 people throughout the Commonwealth, according to the most recent ICE arrest data from the Data Deportation Project.

This is over four times the amount of ICE arrests made in Virginia in the two years prior to Trump’s inauguration.

8News previously reported that the agency had made 10,988 arrests in Virginia between Trump’s inauguration and March 10 — meaning just over 4,700 people were arrested by ICE in less than five months.

And my gracious. If that upset the local station, I would hate to see how they feel about what’s been going on the last two weeks. It seems there’s been a bit of a summer rush in enforcement activity in the Maryland and Virginia areas that make up the Washington, D.C. suburbs.

ICE arrested 1,328 illegal immigrants in just 14 days in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. — one of the agency’s most successful operations to date.

Nearly 400 of those arrested had criminal convictions or pending charges, including a Salvadoran national wanted on a murder warrant… pic.twitter.com/mgDLcaPbD7

— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) August 24, 2026

…Nearly 400 of those arrested had criminal convictions or pending charges, including a Salvadoran national wanted on a murder warrant in Richmond, Virginia. Other charges include rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, DUIs, robberies, and attempted murders.

The operation, titled “Operation Safe Community – Washington, D.C.,” targeted Virginia and Maryland — both of which have sanctuary-type policies in place. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ripped sanctuary politicians, saying the Trump Administration “will always put American citizens first.”

As Bill Meluguin pointed out in his report, yes, they snapped up the worst of the worst as promised, but no one had ever said they weren’t going to touch someone here illegally just because there wasn’t a warrant out for them.

If you weren’t supposed to be here, they made sure you were removed if they found you.

This is what Democrats have let into our Country. One of these is allegedly a Murderer.

ICE arrests 1,328 illegal immigrants across Virginia and Maryland sweeping a 14 Day enforcement operation in the D.C. area and federal sources describe it as the agency’s most successful…

— Johnny Midnight ⚡️ (@its_The_Dr) August 24, 2026

HASTA LA VISTA

Since Kristi Noem’s first TV spots telling people, ‘time to leave,’ there has been ample warning and even money available for these people who knowingly came into the country illegally to exit without penalty.

And yet, here they are.

Well…WERE.

The D.C. field office averaged 100 arrests each day of the operation as they quietly went about two weeks of methodical immigration enforcement in what they call one of their ‘most successful’ operations to date. And to the outraged cries of ‘But 900 of them had no criminal record,’ the ICE ERO acting director had a simple answer.

IF YOU ARE IN THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY, YOU ARE A CRIMINAL – YOU’VE BROKEN THE LAWS OF OUR LAND

🚨 WOW! A top ICE official just told the left to SCREW OFF after they attacked agents for arresting illegals without “prior” criminal actions in Virginia-Maryland

“If you’re in the country illegally, you are a CRIMINAL. You’ve broken the laws of our land!”

🔥🔥

That’s the…

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 25, 2026

Remember, these progressives wear their empathy, preference for these illegal aliens, and active resistance to any enforcement of federal immigration law as a badge of honor, whatever the cost to their citizens.

Abigail Spanberger BRAGS about ending state cooperation with ICE — making Virginia a sanctuary for criminal illegals including rapists, murderers, and pedophiles. pic.twitter.com/X7gxWvRNKA

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 6, 2026

Perhaps because they never personally bear that cost.

Staggering statistic here. Half of this year’s murder suspects in snooty tooty, overeducated, and wealthy Fairfax County, VA, are illegal aliens. Why on Earth would elected officials want to be known as a sanctuary for rapists and murderers?

MY GOSH: Half of all homicide suspects in Fairfax County, Virginia this year are illegal aliens—four out of eight—yet this progressive sanctuary county still REFUSES to cooperate with ICE.

Lisa Boothe: “Why are Democrats putting their citizens in harm’s way?… Why are they… pic.twitter.com/YPkrPyjHiX

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) August 20, 2026

Worse, why would voters ever countenance such blatant disregard for the first tenet of an elected official’s duty – to safeguard their constituents?

A total of nine people have been killed in eight Fairfax County homicide cases so far in 2026. Reporting shows that half of the suspects in theses cases are in the U.S. illegally. 

This year, the following nine homicide victims were identified across eight cases:

• Mamta Thapa, 33, and Binda Thapa, 52, were killed during a Feb. 23 domestic stabbing in Mantua.
• Stephanie Minter, 41, was killed in a Feb. 23 stabbing in Hybla Valley.
• A 3-month-old was killed in a March 27 blunt force trauma incident in Bailey’s Crossroads.
• An unnamed man was killed in a March 29 stabbing in Bailey’s Crossroads.
• Dr. Cerina Fairfax, 49, was killed in a murder-suicide in Annandale.
• Auner Chavez Diaz, 19, was killed in a May 9 stabbing in Huntington.
• Chisen Jameson, 60, was shot and killed during a July 12 domestic incident in Fair Oaks.
• Carmen Lizet Puch, 42, was stabbed to death and found near Great Falls on Aug. 17.

Four of the suspects tied to these eight homicide investigations were identified as undocumented immigrants, accounting for 50% of the cases in the county so far this year. 

But they choose these bad actors to govern them repeatedly, and DHS and its immigration enforcement arms are the bad guys.

This is just one more sickening, inexplicable example of the twisted mindset at the center of the Democrat Party, enabled by the lemmings who elect and empower them.

How delightful to have an administration that is proving to be immune to virtue-signaling hissy fits and ignores the lines drawn by posturing tools.

They recalibrate and roll on.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50,000 people during July, the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration, according to new figures.

The spike in immigration arrests shows that the administration has continued to advance its mass deportations agenda despite a shift in approach earlier this year from high-profile operations in large American cities that sparked a public outcry to arrests that have garnered less attention but have nonetheless been disruptive.

The July arrest tally of 49,571 marks a 15% jump from 43,021 arrests a month earlier and a 70% increase from 29,241 in February, in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in Minnesota, according to government data that was provided by ICE to the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project and analyzed by The Associated Press.

Immigration arrests the month before Trump entered office hovered a little over 8,000 a figure largely made up of immigrants transferred from city or state jails and prisons and turned over to ICE to remove from the country. During Trump’s first year in office the numbers started climbing as the administration loosened restrictions on where and who ICE could arrest while it also infused the agency with billions of dollars.

By December, the number of arrests jumped to more than 40,177, according to the data, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Even if they have to tiptoe through the tulips to do it, it’s heartwarming to know they’re doing what we voted for.

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

Help us hold these leftists accountable and expose their obstruction. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.