Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger has vowed that if elected governor, she will turn Virginia into a sanctuary state for illegal aliens.
In an interview with the Virginia Mercury, Spanberger confirmed that if elected, she will rescind Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) Executive Order from February which directed state police and other local law enforcement officials to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding identifying and apprehending illegal aliens.
Under the executive order, the Virginia State Police (VSP) and Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) were directed to enter into “Section 287(g) partnerships” with ICE. Additionally, the “Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security” was directed to “contact every Director, Sheriff, or other official in charge of a local or regional jail in the Commonwealth of Virginia and request a certification confirming their full cooperation with ICE.”
While Spanberger acknowledged in her interview that the “immigration system is absolutely broken” in the United States, she described taking “local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies” from their regular duties to assist in immigration enforcement as a “misuse of those resources.”
“The idea that we would take local police officers or local sheriff’s deputies in amid all the things that they have to do, like community policing or staffing our jails or investigating real crimes, so that they can go and tear families apart… that is a misuse of those resources,” Spanberger told the outlet.