The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking aim at the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office following a recent immigration arrest in Courthouse.
David Cabrera, an undocumented immigrant who pleaded guilty to the attempted rape of Arlington teenager in 2014, was detained by ICE agents outside the Arlington County magistrate’s office earlier this month.
ICE had previously deported Cabrera two times since 2017, court records show.
In an interview with Fox News, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said that his agency had an active detainer out for Cabrera when he was arrested for an alleged probation violation last month. This is a non-binding request asking an agency to help ICE in detaining an individual.
Currently, the sheriff’s office does not honor immigration detainers unless they’re accompanied by a judicially signed warrant. Lyons argued that this policy “lets criminals back on the street to reoffend again.”
“If Arlington had cooperated we could have arrested [Cabrera] in a security facility,” he said. “Instead, our agents had to track him down in the community, where they could have encountered others.”
Cabrera’s immigration arrest earned the opposite response from Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, who reiterated criticisms of efforts to have ICE target more people accused, but not convicted, of crimes.
Dehghani-Tafti has argued that such changes hinder public safety by creating greater distrust between immigrant communities and law enforcement.
“People who were walking out of the magistrate’s office after being CHARGED — not convicted, just charged, when the presumption of innocence is attached — were being greeted by ICE,” she wrote in a social media post.
Cabrera was previously arrested in November 2014 for the attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl in the Buckingham neighborhood.
Police said at the time that he approached the victim from behind while she was walking home from work around 11 p.m.
“He pulled his pants down and attempted to pull her pants down,” Arlington County Police Department spokesman Lt. Kip Malcolm told ARLnow in 2014. “She bit his hand and was able to secure her escape.”
Cabrera accepted a plea deal with then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Theo Stamos. He pleaded guilty to attempted rape and received a sentence of two and a half years of active incarceration, plus a suspended sentence of four years and six months.
Before Cabrera could be released, ICE filed a detainer and had him deported in May 2017.
But Cabrera didn’t stay away for long. In August 2018, he was arrested again and found guilty in Arlington Circuit Court of a probation violation, according to court records.
ICE once again filed a detainer in April 2019, and in August 2020, he was once again deported.
It’s unclear when Cabrera returned to the United States a third time. However, Fox reported that he was arrested on suspicion of another probation violation on June 4, and released on July 11.
“David Cabrera was released on that date, however, there was no judicially signed warrant in our possession/records management system,” ACSO spokesperson Amy Meehan told ARLnow.
ICE has been ramping up arrests at Virginia courthouses in recent months, in a policy shift that has alarmed some advocates who argue that the practice discourages people from accessing the court system.
Lyons’ criticisms of the sheriff’s office aren’t the first time Arlington County has recently come under fire for policies protecting undocumented immigrants.
A recent County Board vote to end voluntary cooperation with ICE at the Arlington County Police Department led to sharp criticisms from top state officials — Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Attorney General Jason Miyares (R).
