The House Judiciary Committee continued a war of words with many of Arlington’s local leaders in a new report slamming attempts to shield undocumented immigrants.
Building on aggressive letters to several local agencies earlier this year and an ongoing public dispute with Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, the committee took aim at policies at the Arlington County Police Department, Arlington County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in a 23-page interim staff report reviewed by ARLnow.
The report, which is titled “Arlington County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies,” accuses Arlington and other Democrat-led jurisdictions of endangering public safety through policies that make it harder for immigration enforcement to detain suspects in criminal cases.
“Many Democrat-run state and local jurisdictions prohibit law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure that criminal aliens are transferred to ICE custody and removed from the United States,” the report states. “Led by far-left officials and guided by radical immigration policies, these sanctuary jurisdictions provide a safe haven for criminal aliens.”
Officials defended their policies in statements to ARLnow.
“Our foremost obligation is to the safety and well-being of the residents and community of Arlington County, and every decision we make is guided by that principle,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Amy Meehan said. “We stand firmly behind our community and the values of trust, transparency, and public safety that define our work.”
“We will continue to carry out our duties faithfully, in accordance with applicable law and local policy, and we will always strive to do what is best for the people we are sworn to serve,” she continued.
Specifically, the committee chaired by U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) condemned the following actions in Arlington:
- The County Board updating ACPD’s trust policy in May 2025, preventing local police from initiating contact with immigration enforcement
- The sheriff’s office declining to honor ICE detainers unless they are accompanied by a judicial warrant — a decision that, according to the report, resulted in the agency honoring only two of 310 detainers filed between January 2025 and May 2026
- The commonwealth’s attorney’s office asking prosecutors to take immigration status into account when determining criminal charges for certain crimes
The report quotes from a closed-door deposition that Dehghani-Tafti delivered to the Judiciary Committee in July, in which the commonwealth’s attorney defended a memo asking prosecutors to consider other charges when a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is accused of drunk driving.
This is to prevent “disproportionate and devastating collateral consequences” for DACA recipients who may be deported as a result of this conviction, according to policies quoted in the report. The report accuses Dehghani-Tafti of “pro-illegal alien, anti-law enforcement sentiments.”
“Once in the country, sanctuary policies in Democrat-run jurisdictions like Arlington County, Virginia, allow criminal aliens to stay, hurting public safety and endangering law-abiding Americans,” the report states.
Dehghani-Tafti fired back at the report as a “political sham” and called for the release of the full transcript of her deposition:
From the start, this was a political sham. The Committee refused to hear my testimony in public because open testimony doesn’t let you distort a record. This report is the predictable product of that process – a piece of political propaganda timed for the midterms, built on the deliberate misrepresentations of my policies and my testimony. Now it’s clear why they wouldn’t hold a public hearing and why they stonewalled my requests for the full deposition transcript. They didn’t want the public to see it. I demand the Committee release the full, unedited transcript of my deposition immediately.
A 122-page redacted transcript of the deposition is available on the Judiciary Committee’s website.
The County Board, meanwhile, defended its actions, stating that “immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government and the County’s policies and actions have been compliant with the law”:
The Board’s Trust policy was adopted in 2022 and is grounded in public safety, civil rights, and constitutional compliance. This policy was amended in 2025, eliminating the instances in which the Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) can initiate contact with ICE regarding immigration enforcement. All County agencies, including ACPD, are required to comply with the Trust Policy.
These policies do not bar federal authorities from exercising their own lawful powers within Arlington County. Arlington remains focused on the public safety of its residents and will continue to devote its resources to investigating and deterring crimes committed in Arlington County.
The Judiciary Committee is in the middle of similar disputes with 12 other jurisdictions around the country.
“The Committee will continue its oversight into sanctuary jurisdictions that prioritize the comfort of illegal alien criminals over the safety of U.S. citizens,” the committee wrote.
