Virginia Has Become a Hotbed for Immigration Arrests
Arrests in the state by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are up more than 350 percent since 2024, one of the steepest increases in the country. This outpaces the growth in ICE arrests in Democratic-run states like California and New York and Republican-controlled states like Florida and Texas. Nearly 3,000 people were arrested by ICE in Virginia in the first five months of 2025, on par with numbers in a much larger state like New York.
It is not entirely clear why Virginia, a politically middle-of-the-road state, has become such a magnet for immigration enforcement.
The state's immigrant population has increased dramatically in recent decades, and Virginia is now home to more than a million immigrants, most of them citizens or legal residents. But compared to some other states where arrests haven't risen as much, like neighboring Maryland, people born in foreign countries make up a smaller percentage of the population.
One difference may be that ICE has the unqualified backing of Virginia's leaders, as well as sheriff departments across the state.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican nearing the end of his term, has been full-throated in his support for President Trump's immigration crackdown. Sounding a constant refrain about the perils of 'dangerous criminal illegal immigrants,' Mr. Youngkin has championed the work of a federal-state task force aimed at combating 'transnational organized crime.' He has directed his state's law enforcement agencies to partner with federal immigration authorities and threatened to withhold funding from local governments that do not fully cooperate with ICE.
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