FIRST ON FOX: Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger is facing pushback from both her opponent and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after condemning the “shocking” execution of an ICE raid at a Virginia courthouse earlier this month that netted two criminal illegal immigrants.
“I think what we’ve seen most shocking, including here in Charlottesville, has been cases where people haven’t provided identification and have been in some cases masked and in plain clothes,” Spanberger, a former Democratic congresswoman and former intelligence officer, told the Daily Progress last month after an ICE raid at Albemarle County Courthouse led to the arrest of two illegal immigrants.
“I’m a former federal agent, and I used to work narcotics cases and money laundering cases,” she said. “I have been on so many arrest warrants and search warrants at the crack of dawn and at all hours of the day, and identifying yourself, demonstrating who you are, making clear to a community member — even someone you are about to put handcuffs on, even when you enter a home, in a stack, lined up, guns drawn, yelling, ‘Police!’ — you show your badge, you show your credentials, you show your warrant.”
The raid that Spanberger took issue with resulted in the arrest of two illegal immigrants who DHS told Fox News Digital had criminal records.
Teodoro Dominguez-Rodriguez, a Honduran national, was described by DHS as a “violent illegal alien” with “multiple arrests for assault and battery as well as an outstanding order of protection against him.”
Pablo Aparicio Marcelino, a Mexican national, was also described by DHS as a “criminal illegal alien” with “multiple arrests for failing to stop at the scene of an accident, driving without a license, and driving under the influence.”
Spanberger’s questions about the process of arresting the two foreign nationals drew pushback from her opponent in the race for governor, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
“Abigail Spanberger’s outrage over criminal illegal immigrants being taken off our streets is everything Virginians need to know about what kind of governor she’d be — criminals first, victims last,” Earle-Sears press secretary Peyton Vogel told Fox News Digital.
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“She created this mess when she voted in Washington to keep criminal migrants here, and now she wants to stand in the way of cleaning it up.”
A Spanberger spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the Virginia Democrat supports arresting criminal illegal immigrants but believes the ICE agents acted improperly.
“Abigail believes that violent criminals who are in the United States illegally should not be allowed to stay and that immigration enforcement should be focused on removing these individuals,” the spokesperson said. “As a former federal law enforcement officer who worked narcotics cases, Abigail executed warrants and arrested criminals. And as Abigail made clear to the Daily Progress, she made these arrests in uniform, displaying her badge and arrest warrant to those taken into custody.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended raids at courthouses, saying it is “common sense.”
“It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be. It is also safer for our officers and the community. These illegal aliens have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons. Secretary Noem is empowering law enforcement to use common sense to remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities.”
McLaughlin also pushed back on Spanberger’s suggestion that the ICE agents did not properly identify themselves.
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“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as police while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected terrorist sympathizers,” McLaughlin said.
“It is interesting that the media who are so concerned with our law enforcement officers wearing masks to protect themselves don’t say a word about the terrorist sympathizers on U.S. college campuses who cowardly wear masks as they do the bidding of terrorist organizations that relish the killing of Americans and Jews.”
Earle-Sears, endorsed by the term-limited Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, will square off against Spanberger this November to determine the next governor of the commonwealth.
Immigration has been a prominent topic in the race, including in the first ad that the lieutenant governor dropped, which criticized Spanberger over her past opposition to a border wall.
A Spanberger spokesperson at the time called the ad a “distraction attempt,” adding that Spanberger “led bipartisan bills that were signed into law by both President Trump and President Biden to disrupt fentanyl trafficking at our ports of entry, combat Mexican cartels and secure our borders.”
