House Republicans are hauling in two top Fairfax County law enforcement officials, including a Soros-backed prosecutor, after violent crimes involving illegal immigrants released from custody intensified federal scrutiny of the county’s sanctuary-style policies.
Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Ann Kincaid and Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steven Descano are invited to voluntarily testify at an upcoming Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement Subcommittee hearing entitled “Fairfax County Virginia – The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary City Policies.”
Both are elected Democrats, and Descano’s campaigns have received more than $700,000 in funds from organizations backed by far-left Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, according to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, a pro-police group.
Descano and Kincaid received near-identical letters signed by Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock, R-Calif., which were also obtained by Fox News Digital.
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“The hearing will examine how state and local policies that prohibit cooperation with federal immigration authorities hurt public safety,” Jordan and McClintock wrote.
“Your testimony will assist the Committee and Subcommittee in developing legislative reforms to address sanctuary jurisdictions.”
The Fairfax officials have until Monday to confirm their presence at the April 15 hearing to be held at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
Descano has a record of dropping charges against illegal immigrants who often have prior criminal records, including Salvadoran national Marvin Morales-Ortez, who was accused of the murder of a Virginia man ambushed on a walking trail.
Jordan and McClintock previously wrote to Descano about their concerns in that case, saying his policies “prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens and threaten public safety.”
They said Kincaid released Morales-Ortez on December 16 despite his potential MS-13 ties after Descano’s office declined to further pursue prosecution in a malicious wounding case from September 12.
“Despite an ICE detainer on Morales-Ortez, your office refused to briefly detain him until ICE could arrest him and failed to even notify ICE about his imminent release,” the lawmakers wrote to Kincaid at the time.
“One day later, Morales-Ortez allegedly murdered a man in Reston, Virginia, and has now been charged with second-degree murder. Even now, however, you continue to defend your failed sanctuary policies and refuse to take accountability for their consequences,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, first reported by Washington’s ABC affiliate.
The outlet further reported that Fairfax County’s board, led by Chairman Jeffrey McKay, D-Franconia, also prohibits the Fairfax County Police Department from cooperating with ICE.
Nick Minock, a reporter for the outlet, later obtained a transcript of Morales-Ortez’s preliminary hearing in which Descano’s office posited that Morales-Ortez was present when Jose Guillen Mejia was murdered and had ambushed the man on the trail.
A short time after he was released, Morales-Ortez allegedly went to a home on Fan Shell Court in Reston, Va. — near John F. Dulles International Airport — and allegedly shot a man inside.
That chain of events enraged the Trump administration, with then-Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin saying that “Fairfax County politicians [who] pushed policies that released this illegal alien from jail” have “blood on their hands.”
More recently, the family of Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old mother stabbed to death at a Fairfax bus stop by an illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet, called for Descano’s ouster.
Abdul Jalloh, a Sierra Leone national, was charged with second-degree murder, and Descano released him despite being warned of his 30 prior arrests. Jalloh had been served an order of removal during the Biden administration but was never deported.
A police official in Mount Vernon emailed concerns to Descano’s office about Jalloh being released again, according to Fox & Friends.
Given the heavy Democratic bent of Fairfax, Virginia’s largest county by population and one state officials are trying to include in at least five newly drawn congressional districts, Descano and Kincaid have been strongly supported by voters in each election.
Republicans did not mount opponents against either candidate in 2023, while Descano’s only challenge came from fellow Democrat Ed Nuttall, whose primary bid was reportedly boosted by victims’ rights advocates.
Nuttall also mounted a write-in challenge in the general election that year but lost. Kincaid was first elected in 2013.
Fairfax Democrats removed Nuttall from their party amid that write-in bid after he attended a Brain Foundation fundraiser with Fairfax’s lone Republican board member, Pat Herrity of Springfield, and a Republican board candidate from Sully named Keith Elliott, according to FairfaxNow.
Herrity is the son of the late Chairman Jack Herrity, a Republican known as “Mr. Fairfax” in the 1980s when the county was much more conservative.
Fox News Digital reached out to Descano’s and Kincaid’s offices for comment.
