The House Judiciary Committee has given Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano until next Friday to produce documents relating to his office’s sanctuary policies, including its alleged “preferential treatment of illegal aliens to ensure that they do not face immigration consequences for their criminality.”
In a Sept. 16 letter, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chair of the committee, accused Descano of downplaying the number of cases in which his office “considered immigration consequences” when deciding whether and how to prosecute suspects.
“You have failed to provide the Committee with the majority of the responsive documents and information, instead only producing limited materials, including your office’s prosecution policies and certain court documents related to a small number of criminal aliens,” Jordan’s letter says.
The committee’s request for documents follows a letter it sent to Descano last month, in which it asserted that it is authorized to investigate whether local jurisdictions are complying with federal immigration laws. “The problem of sanctuary jurisdictions like Fairfax County flouting immigration law clearly involves federal interests,” Jordan’s committee wrote on Aug. 24. “Failing to prosecute or under-prosecuting foreign nationals so that immigration consequences can be avoided implicates Congress’s plenary power over immigration.”
Before the subpoena went out, lawyers for Descano preemptively sent a letter to the committee, which WTOP obtained. They write that the commonwealth’s attorney “testified voluntarily before the Committee, and … produced over 1,100 pages of documents to the Committee and provided four separate letters answering the Committee’s questions and explaining in detail how his office policies have helped keep Fairfax County one of the safest large jurisdictions in the country.” Descano appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security and Enforcement in May.
However, Jordan wants more documentation.
“Your refusal to identify the cases in which your office considered immigration consequences has continued—even for the limited number of cases specifically and repeatedly identified by the Committee more than three months ago,” the chairman wrote in this week’s subpoena letter.
“At best, you have provided a clear denial for cases involving only four of the 27 criminal aliens identified by the Committee. Given the damaging consequences the individuals’ criminality has had on Northern Virginia communities, your refusal to deny that your office considered immigration consequences in these matters speaks volumes.”
Descano’s lawyers added that he considers the subpoena an “attempt to intimidate and harass a local prosecutor lawfully exercising his prosecutorial authority simply because members of the Committee disagree with his politics and those of the Fairfax County voters who elected (and re-elected) him by a wide margin.” Descano was unopposed in his 2023 run for reelection.
“Your office’s lenient treatment of foreign national criminals endangers communities and ensures that criminal aliens escape both criminal and immigration accountability for their actions,” Jordan wrote.
Last month, local news sources reported that there have been nine homicides in Fairfax County in 2026, and half of the suspects charged in those cases were in the U.S. illegally. The most recent case involves Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, who was arrested in connection with the killing of 42-year-old Carmen Lizet Puch.
In February, 32-year-old Abdul Jalloh was charged with fatally stabbing 41-year-old Stephanie Minter at a bus stop in the county. Jalloh entered the country illegally in 2012 and had been arrested more than 30 times.
“Our office convicted the defendant of a 2023 malicious wounding charge, and we have since made every effort to hold him accountable each subsequent time that he has come in contact with the criminal justice system, including asking him to be held pretrial and on a probation violation,” a spokesman for the Fairfax commonwealth’s attorney’s office said this year. However, Jalloh was never deported.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is also investigating what it called Fairfax County’s “Plea Bargaining, Charging Decisions, and Sentencing Policy,” it announced in May. “This investigation will uncover whether this prosecutor is putting the community at risk in offering sweetheart deals to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon announced.
In addition to seeking papers from Descano, the committee made a similar request for documents from the district attorney in Boulder, Colorado.
