Virginia bars ICE from state property without a warrant

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed 📖Executive Order 16 on May 20, 2026, barring federal civil 📖immigration enforcement agents from using any Virginia state property as a staging area, processing location, or operations base. The order covers schools, hospitals, courthouses, polling places, and Commonwealth's Attorney offices. State agencies must confirm that any federal law enforcement officer seeking access to state property has a valid warrant or court order before entry is permitted. Spanberger framed the order as a public safety measure: "Kids in elementary school are afraid to get on the bus, neighbors fear being targeted based on their appearance at the grocery store, and workers are not showing up at their jobs."

The 📖executive order also directs multiple state agencies — including the Department of Criminal Justice Services, the Commonwealth's Attorneys' Services Council, the Department of Elections, Virginia education systems, and the Department of Health — to develop formal guidelines for employees navigating interactions with federal immigration officers. It establishes a "Know Your Rights" website where Virginians can report alleged legally prohibited practices by federal agents.

On the same day, Spanberger signed House Bill 1482 and Senate Bill 352, passed by Virginia's Democratic-controlled General Assembly. The legislation requires all law enforcement officers operating in Virginia — including federal agents — to display visible identification and prohibits most facial coverings while on duty. Officers who violate the identification requirement face disciplinary action up to dismissal, demotion, suspension, or decertification. A violation also constitutes a if the officer's agency lacks a valid policy or the officer fails to display required identification.

The bills came amid national controversy over masked federal immigration agents conducting street operations. Spanberger cited incidents in Minnesota, where masked federal agents were present during the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, to argue that masked enforcement erodes public trust and accountability.

Spanberger simultaneously vetoed two companion bills — House Bill 650 and Senate Bill 351 — that would have gone further, explicitly prohibiting ICE from making civil arrests inside Virginia's courthouses, health care facilities, schools, and polling places without a judicial warrant. She argued the legislation would create "unavoidable legal liability" for courthouse security guards, who would face a choice between violating state law by blocking federal agents or violating federal law by allowing them in without a warrant. She offered amendments to make the bills workable, but the General Assembly rejected them.

The veto drew immediate sharp criticism from the ACLU of Virginia. Policy Director Chris Kaiser said it was "shocking that Gov. Spanberger would choose to veto the protections these bills would have provided and replace them with an 📖executive order that does nothing to keep Virginians safe." Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, and the bill sponsors said they were "deeply disappointed" and argued Spanberger misunderstood both the legislation and existing courthouse practices.

The enforcement surge that triggered EO 16 is documented in ICE's own data. Between Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025 and early March 2026, ICE arrested — compared with 1,595 arrests in all of 2024. That is a sevenfold increase. The busiest months were October and December 2025, each exceeding 1,000 arrests. Virginia's three ICE detention facilities — the Caroline Detention Center in Caroline County, the Farmville Detention Center in Prince Edward County, and Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County — logged over that period.

Of those 14,687 bookings, only 30 percent of detainees had a criminal conviction — a statistic Spanberger cited directly in her 📖executive order signing statement. The governor's office also noted that nearly 100 children were arrested by ICE in Virginia during this period, some as young as 2 years old.

EO 16 is not Spanberger's first action limiting ICE cooperation. On February 4, 2026, she signed Executive Directive 1, which terminated 287(g) agreements between ICE and Virginia State Police, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Wildlife Resources, and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. Under 287(g) agreements, state officers can be deputized to perform 📖immigration enforcement functions under federal supervision. Spanberger found that the agreements improperly ceded accountability and discretion over Virginia law enforcement to the federal government and that state police use of the program was relatively minimal.

Importantly, Executive Directive 1 applied only to state law enforcement agencies, not to local sheriff's offices, several of which — including Greene County — remained in after Spanberger's directive.

The Trump administration responded forcefully. Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News after Spanberger's February directive, "We're working around that in New York and, you know, California and Oregon and Illinois." After EO 16, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued a statement to Fox News Digital: "No surprise: Governor Spanberger continues to put illegal alien criminals over her own constituents." Homan separately warned that if Spanberger blocked access to Virginia jails, ICE would conduct more arrests in public streets rather than in controlled facility settings.

Conservative legal commentator Hans von Spakovsky, a constitutional scholar with Advancing American Freedom, called EO 16 "," arguing that no warrant is required under federal immigration law to detain individuals and that Spanberger had no authority to impose requirements on federal agencies. The administration had not filed a legal challenge to the order as of May 23, 2026.

Spanberger's actions deepened a fracture inside Virginia's Democratic Party. The split is not partisan but strategic. Progressive Democrats, the ACLU, and sponsors of HB 650 and SB 351 argue that warrantless ICE arrests inside courthouses undermine the rule of law itself: people avoid going to court to pay fines, appear as witnesses, or seek protection orders because they fear arrest. Spanberger, a former CIA officer and moderate who won the governorship in 2025, has repeatedly stated that Virginia is not a sanctuary state.

Virginia Mercury reported on May 21, 2026, that Spanberger's mixed actions — signing some bills, vetoing others — left Democratic lawmakers frustrated and baffled. Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax, and Del. Karen Keys-Gamarra, D-Fairfax, the lead sponsors of the vetoed legislation, said they were deeply disappointed. Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, who had praised Executive Directive 1, did not publicly criticize the veto.

The constitutional mechanics of EO 16 rest on property rights and the anticommandeering doctrine, not a direct ban on federal enforcement. The Supreme Court's anticommandeering doctrine — established in 📖Printz v. United States (1997) and affirmed in Murphy v. NCAA (2018) — holds that the federal government cannot commandeer state officers or resources to carry out federal programs. Virginia can decline to make its property available as a federal staging ground. It cannot order federal agents to stop enforcing immigration law.

The distinction is legally significant. EO 16 does not purport to stop ICE arrests on state property — it bars ICE from using state property as an operational base and requires a warrant for non-public area access. Critics including von Spakovsky argue the warrant-demand provision exceeds state authority over federal officers. Proponents counter that property-access conditions are a straightforward exercise of state ownership rights.

Five days after signing EO 16, on May 23, 2026, the Washington Post reported Spanberger was taking additional implementation steps. She directed state agencies to develop specific employee-level guidance for encounters with federal immigration agents — what employees should say, what they can ask to see, and when to escalate. The guidance development process was ongoing as of May 23. The state also moved to launch the "Know Your Rights" website called for in EO 16.

The Post's reporting noted this second wave of implementation activity came after the initial signing drew criticism that EO 16 lacked operational specificity — it set policy but did not tell a exactly what to do when ICE agents walked in.

Virginia's political positioning under Spanberger matters nationally. Virginia is a purple state that Democrats won narrowly in 2025. Spanberger's approach — aggressive enough to protect immigrant communities through property-access controls and visible-ID requirements, but cautious enough to avoid legislation that could be struck down or create municipal liability — tracks a strategy other Democratic governors in contested states have watched closely.

VPM's May 2026 reporting on found 📖immigration enforcement had risen sharply over the prior year, driven in part by 287(g) agreements Youngkin signed before leaving office. ICE had also been in Virginia, per ACLU FOIA litigation surfacing internal agency planning documents.