Gov. Glenn Youngkin is trying to give Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears an early Christmas present – a generated controversy over immigration to use in her 2025 gubernatorial campaign.
The Republican governor with no political future rolled out on Thursday what his office called a “no sanctuary cities” budget proposal that would withhold funding from localities that purport to be sanctuary cities, requiring local police to fully comply with the feds on immigration issues.
Doing what these people do, Youngkin, at a press conference on this on Thursday, hyped the arrest of a Honduran immigrant on rape charges in Fairfax County in November, blaming the county’s “sanctuary policies enabled that criminal to be released back on the streets without notifying ICE.”
“She was raped by an illegal immigrant who had a criminal history that extended so deep and so far back,” said Youngkin, ignoring the obvious with that particular story – the alleged perpetrator, Denis Humberto Navarette Romero, 31, was released after serving half of a 50-day sentence on an indecent-exposure conviction because our jails are overcrowded, which isn’t an immigration problem.
Maybe, just maybe, we over-incarcerate?
Right off the top, making everything that ails society about immigration, our term-limited governor is obviously not going to get anywhere with the Virginia General Assembly, which is controlled by the Democrats.
“Given the fact the governor has already politicized this problem, that’s not going to do anything to help get anything passed. If he wants to have real dialogue about it, he ought to turn down the temperature and have real dialogue,” said State Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, the Senate Majority Leader.
Surovell surely knows that Youngkin doesn’t want “real dialogue,” or to “get anything passed.”
This is a play from the Republican playbook, trying to create controversy with immigration, just like Donald Trump is doing, with his squawking about how he’s going to deport millions of immigrants, lumping them all into being murderers and rapists, because that’s what appeals to White voters, being told that people with brown skin are all criminals.
“The Youngkin administration’s proposal to force Virginia police to do the federal government’s job at Virginians’ expense doesn’t stand a chance in a state with such a long history of valuing immigrants,” said Sophia Gregg, the senior immigrants’ rights attorney at ACLU of Virginia. “With more than 1 million immigrants living in the Commonwealth today – more than 75 percent living here for longer than a decade – it’s clear that Gov. Youngkin’s proposal is simple fearmongering divorced from the reality of who Virginians are today.”
Another case in point to that end: this quote in the press release from the governor’s office attributed to the guy who passed himself off as a moderate when he ran for governor in 2021 by wearing a red vest.
“Criminals who are in the United States illegally will be turned over to ICE. We must stop the cycle of violence and crime that is being enabled by some local governments,” Youngkin said in the release. “Virginia is not a sanctuary state, and we must be clear that we will not allow localities to become ‘sanctuary cities.’ If local governments turn their backs on their citizens in order to pander to pro-illegal immigrant groups, we will cut off their funding.”
Earle-Sears, herself a brown-skinned Jamaican immigrant, is leaning hard into the strategy.
“My father and I had to file documents and wait to be granted permission to enter the United States. Under Gov. Youngkin’s leadership, Virginia stands firm: we are not a sanctuary state,” said Earle-Sears, who immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 6, so, she didn’t have to file any documents herself, but anyway.
“Any local elected official who instructs law enforcement to defy efforts to keep Virginians safe abandons their duty and breaks the trust of the people they swore to protect,” Earle-Sears said. “The rule of law is not negotiable. It is the foundation of our safety, our freedom, and the promise of opportunity that defines America.”
For the perspective of another immigrant, we can turn to Nerbir Rodríguez, who has lived in Fairfax County for the past 17 years, and was instrumental in the development of the county’s Public Trust and Confidentiality Policy.
Rodriguez is a father of three who owns a landscaping and gardening business with six employees.
“With this proposal to end those programs, I feel unsafe and afraid knowing that I may be at risk of deportation, and that my family may be separated,” Rodriguez said. “We do not want these types of racist laws in our state, since what they do is generate hatred for our community, seek to erode our strength as workers, and dilute the economic contributions that our families make to this nation.”
We can also turn to Luis Aguilar, the Virginia director of CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization with its roots in fighting U.S. efforts to destabilize Latin America, which is a direct cause of the influx of immigrants coming north to escape political violence.
Yeah, there’s a you broke it, you bought it aspect to this.
“Gov. Youngkin’s proposal puts lives at risk,” Aguilar said. “How can we expect anyone, immigrant or otherwise, to reach out to law enforcement in times of need when they fear deportation or discrimination? Trust is the foundation of any safe community. Without it, victims of crime will remain silent, and witnesses will turn away, leaving dangerous situations unreported and unaddressed.
“Gov. Youngkin’s budget plan does not protect Virginians. It divides us,” Aguilar said. “It pits community members against one another, driving a wedge between law enforcement and the very people who contribute to making our state great. It punishes cities for supporting immigrant families and breeds an atmosphere of fear. CASA stands with Virginia’s immigrant communities and calls on the governor to reconsider this dangerous proposal.”
Video: Glenn Youngkin’s racist politics on immigration
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Chris Graham
