This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares on Wednesday declined to provide evidence to support Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recent claim that more than 2,500 people arrested through the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force were “violent criminals.”
Pressed by The Mercury to confirm whether all those individuals had a history of violent crime during a news conference in Richmond touting dozens of local law enforcement leaders supporting his reelection campaign, Miyares deferred.
“Well, you’re going to have to ask the Secretary of Public Safety,” he said, referring to Terrance Cole, Youngkin’s top homeland security official, who did not attend Wednesday’s event.
The governor made the controversial claim earlier this month while defending a series of courthouse arrests carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, which have drawn sharp criticism from civil rights groups and some local officials.
Although the state played no direct role in the recent ICE operations at Virginia courthouses, Youngkin praised the federal agency’s work and cast the 2,500 arrests made under his state-federal task force as a public safety triumph.
“Two-thousand five-hundred violent criminals who are here illegally — MS-13 members, Tren de Aragua, others, international violent gang members,” Youngkin said during a press conference at the Virginia State Police headquarters on July 2. “If someone breaks the law and is here illegally, they should be arrested.”
But on Wednesday, Miyares – who is facing Democrat Jay Jones in his bid for a second term as Virginia’s top law enforcement official — offered a more tempered characterization of the individuals targeted, focusing instead on immigration violations, not violent offenses.
“There are those that are here illegally that are committing crimes, and then (in) the second category there’s 1.4 million people that are in this country illegally, that have already had a deportation hearing, they have been in front of a judge,” Miyares said.
“And under the Biden administration, nothing happened. And so they are now looking at these people that have already had their day in court, and they are seeking for them to actually comply with the court order.”
Miyares delivered his remarks at an event where he announced the endorsement of 78 Virginia sheriffs in his bid for reelection. Surrounded by law enforcement leaders from across the commonwealth, he praised ICE officers and warned that political attacks on immigration agents could lead to violence.
“My biggest concern is you’re going to have a federal agent that’s getting murdered. You’ve already had one that’s been shot,” he said, likely referring to a recent incident where an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was shot in an apparent robbery. “You’ve had a 500% increase in assaults on ICE agents.”
He also emphasized that many undocumented immigrants violate multiple laws when they reenter the country after prior deportation or seek employment in the United States.
“If you reentered the country after you’ve been told to leave, that’s a felony, number one,” Miyares said. “And two, if you were working here, you’d actually commit three different felonies. If you’re an illegal alien and you get a fake Social Security number, you apply for a job, and you’re working, that’s two or three different felonies by itself.”
Miyares’s comments contrast with the sweeping language used by Youngkin, who has described the Homeland Security Task Force as a “national model of success” and a linchpin of Virginia’s partnership with ICE under the 287(g) program, which empowers local and state police to enforce federal immigration laws.
“This is a concerted effort to collaborate with the federal government to make sure that violent criminals that are here illegally are arrested,” Youngkin said previously.
But critics say the task force and ICE’s presence at courthouses have ensnared immigrants with no criminal history and created a chilling effect for victims and witnesses who fear coming to court.
One of those detained in Chesterfield County last month was Salvador Calderon-Cuellar, a man who came to the courthouse to pay a $130 fine for two traffic violations. According to court records, he had no prior arrests. He was arrested by ICE officers who were stationed at a back entrance.
“He had no prior arrests,” Chesterfield Supervisor Jessica Schneider told The Mercury at the time. “Can you tell me that that is a violent criminal person that should be detained?”
Civil rights advocates say the enforcement tactics are politically motivated and erode trust in the justice system.
“The courthouse is a sacred place in a democracy,” Nicole Martin, president of the Chesterfield County NAACP, said last month. “We cannot have a system where people are afraid to show up for hearings, testify as witnesses, or seek protection because ICE might be waiting to detain them.”
Youngkin dismissed such concerns, asserting that ICE agents are avoiding schools and churches and accused the media of distorting the facts. “The media really wants to try to sow deceit,” he said.
However, national reports contradict that claim. In recent months, ICE has conducted arrests outside churches, near schools and even in a school parking lot in Washington, D.C., where officials blocked agents from entering until they presented a warrant.
The Virginia Homeland Security Task Force, launched in February, includes more than 200 officers from the FBI, ICE, Virginia State Police and Department of Corrections. Officials say the task force has focused on gang activity and narcotics trafficking.
Yet the lack of detailed breakdowns on who has been arrested — and for what crimes — has led to growing scrutiny.
Miyares pointed to his personal ride-along with ICE in 2024 as justification for the program’s aims.
“It was all individuals that had been picked up, they were here illegally, they had been picked up on crimes,” he said, citing several cases where detainees had been violent offenders. “And so those stories oftentimes aren’t reported, candidly, by our friends in the media.”
Still, immigration researchers note that undocumented immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. A 2024 report funded by the National Institute of Justice found that undocumented immigrants in Texas were arrested at significantly lower rates — including for violent crimes — than native-born residents.
For now, Miyares appears to walk a line between defending aggressive enforcement and sidestepping the governor’s more inflammatory rhetoric.
“They have been ordered to leave by a judge,” he said of the individuals detained by ICE at Virginia courthouses. “They’ve had their due process. That’s my understanding of who is being targeted. That shouldn’t be controversial.”
