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One of Virginia’s most liberal municipalities has urged its residents to report sightings of ICE agents to emergency services as if they were regular criminals seen on the street.
The chairman of the Arlington County Board of Supervisors also shot Gov. Glenn Youngkin who recently left for the federal 287(g) cooperative agreement with the Department of Homeland Security – the new Gov. Abigail Spanberger has since revoked.
The affluent, densely populated community of 245,000 people sits directly west of Washington, DC, along the Potomac River from Ronald Reagan National Airport north of the Chain Bridge, and has long been the seat of Democratic might in the Old Dominion.
At this week’s board meeting, Chairman Matt de Ferranti, a Rock Spring Democrat, urged Arlingtonians to remember that state law prohibits all citizens and “public safety professionals …
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Drivers are welcome in Virginia near Lee Highway in Arlington. (Getty)
Instead, he said, residents can notify county authorities of state-enforced evacuations and get out of the way themselves.
“That’s not just following the law, but doing everything possible to protect our neighbors and minimize harm. That means working together to call ‘911’ if you see ICE in our community.”
De Ferranti said calling 911 helps officers know ICE is there and pursue “tracking[ing] Arlington County’s law enforcement mission: to prevent violence in our community.”
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Arlington County Supervisor Matt de Ferranti, a Rock Spring Democrat, is seen. (Craig Hudson/Getty Images)
“It also helps us to know that they have no legal requirement to tell us when they enter our community.”
He said ICE’s enforcement approach is “designed to provoke and seek confrontation” and that going door-to-door looking for “undocumented people” is wrong.
Spanberger received the board’s recommendation for rescinding the 287(g) partnership, which de Ferranti said was a policy Arlington “has never condoned — because it has been and will continue to be inconsistent with our standards, [but] that our former ruler followed.”
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ICE agents are looking for the suspect in Manassas, near Arlington. (Melina Mara/Getty Images)
The development comes months after Arlington made headlines for the case of David Cabrera, a twice-deported Guatemalan convicted of rape, whose treatment by Virginia officials angered ICE Director Todd Lyons in July.
Lyons told Fox News that the county board, last month, rescinded a policy that allowed for limited police cooperation with his organization in terrorism, gang or criminal cases.
Cabrera was arrested in June on the charge of trespassing, but Arlington released him from his adult detention facility in Court House, Virginia, on the condition of a federal inmate.
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“You have the worst person ever, who was convicted of rape, and we had a chance to deport him… and they don’t want to turn that person around the right way,” Lyons said.
Arlington County Democratic Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said at the time that ICE misdirected people who were suspected but not always convicted of crimes — citing allegations involving ICE suspects who appeared in court but before their cases were resolved.
Later Tuesday, the Minnesota legislature agreed to de Ferranti’s request.
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Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, is seen on a cold afternoon. (Stock via Getty Images)
Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat running for Senate, told left-wing activist Reverend Al Sharpton on his MS-Now show that “this is not the time for ‘Minnesota Nice'” and that people should call 911 if ICE comes to their parking lot.
Meanwhile, de Ferranti’s comments drew criticism online, with the former Arlington resident declaring the district a “leftist nut,” while Virginia resident and Club for Growth analyst Andrew Follett predicted “people are going to die from this.”
“Hearts, robberies, and a million other things will not be answered in Arlington because the switchboard will be closed by idiots,” he said.
“Look at what they’re doing in Virginia,” added conservative commentator Mike Cernovich to X.
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“That’s a bullet we’ve dodged at the national level; for now.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
