House Judiciary Report: Fairfax County Sheriff's Office Ignored at Least 1,670 ICE Detainers in Two-Plus Years

A new House Republican report says one Virginia county released criminal illegal immigrants instead of handing them to federal custody more than 1,600 times.

According to Fox News, which obtained the interim staff report before its noon Tuesday release, the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office ignored at least 1,670 immigration detainers from ICE between 2023 and 2025. A detainer is a request to hold someone so federal agents can take custody. The report came from the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, under Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and subcommittee Chair Tom McClintock, R-Calif.

The prosecutor. The report also accuses Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano of treating illegal immigrant defendants differently from similar U.S. citizens to limit their immigration consequences. A preliminary review of more than 1,100 criminal cases, the committee says, found more than 100 previously unreported illegal immigrants who benefited from his decisions. It says his office rarely pursued charges for offenses that include driving under the influence, felony drug possession, felony grand larceny, shoplifting, fraud and assaulting a law enforcement officer. The committee says most of the defendants it reviewed went on to reoffend, in some cases with violent crimes and murder. It also accuses Descano of misleading Congress about the scope of his policies.

The cases. The committee describes a prosecutor reducing felony charges involving the sexual assault of a child to a misdemeanor and offering a 90-day suspended sentence. It says his office dropped more than 50 charges against a serial fraudster from China. It describes Marvin Morales-Ortez, an alleged MS-13 member whose charges were dropped before the sheriff's office released him in December 2025. The report says he allegedly murdered a man in Reston, Virginia, a day later. It also cites the February killing of Stephanie Minter, where the suspect, Abdul Jalloh, has more than 40 prior charges in the county. The committee says police warned prosecutors before the killing that "it is not a question of if, but rather when" he would hurt someone again. Minter's mother, Cheryl, told the committee, "a system failed my daughter."

The county's answer. Laura Birnbaum, Descano's chief of staff, called the report "recycled Republican talking points put out weeks before the midterm elections as a desperate attempt to distract from widely anticipated Republican losses." She said its Fairfax sections "contain multiple falsehoods and distortions" and that the county remains focused on safety. Descano has rejected the allegations and told Congress in May his policy was "written with legal permanent residents in mind for minor crimes." The committee says a September letter showed he acknowledged prosecutors may also weigh immigration consequences for illegal immigrants.

The sheriff. Sheriff Stacey Kincaid blamed the releases on a lack of prosecution, writing that "the system must work as a whole."

Note for readers: this is a committee majority staff report, and the allegations are the committee's. We have not reviewed the underlying case files.