ICE in Virginia: Arrests, Detention, and Lawsuits

Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Virginia has surged since early 2025, turning the state into one of the busiest arenas of federal immigration enforcement in the country. Between President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, and March 10, 2026, ICE arrested 10,988 people in Virginia, compared with 1,595 arrests across the entire state in 2024.¹ Governor Abigail Spanberger has ended state-level cooperation with the agency, the General Assembly has passed new limits on local partnerships, and advocacy groups have taken ICE to court over detention conditions and prolonged custody. Here is what has changed, and what still applies.

How Many Arrests, and Who Is Being Arrested

ICE averaged close to 700 arrests per month in Virginia from January through August 2025, then climbed above 800 per month from September 2025 through early March 2026.² October 2025 saw 1,080 arrests and December saw 1,052, the two busiest months in the period.¹ At the June 2025 peak, agents were averaging roughly 34 arrests a day across the state.³ As of April 2026, Virginia ranked seventh nationally in total ICE arrests.

Most people arrested had no criminal history. Of the nearly 11,000 arrested, 8,125 — about 74 percent — had no prior convictions. Another 1,943 had pending charges, and 2,863 had prior convictions. A majority, 6,182 people or 56 percent, were classified as “other immigration violators” facing civil rather than criminal matters. Nearly 100 of those arrested were children, close to half of them 13 or younger, some as young as two.¹

Arrests have happened at scheduled immigration check-ins, at workplaces and schools, and while people were shopping.² On January 14, 2026, more than half a dozen agents ran an operation on a public sidewalk next to a bus station in downtown Petersburg. Local police had not been notified in advance.⁴ In November 2025, DHS publicized a statewide sweep and announced arrests of people accused of sexual assault, drug trafficking, aggravated assault, and rape. ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin described those arrested as “sexual predators, drug traffickers, rapists, abusers and other violent thugs.”⁵ Federal data still shows most people in ICE custody in Virginia have no criminal record.⁶

287(g) Agreements and Which Localities Cooperate

Much of the local involvement in enforcement runs through Section 287(g), which lets local officers perform certain federal immigration functions under agreements with ICE. Former Governor Glenn Youngkin ordered state agencies into the program in early 2025 and pushed localities to follow.⁷ Most adopted the task force model, which lets officers make immigration arrests during ordinary patrol work like traffic stops.⁸

By March 2026, 26 local law enforcement agencies and two regional jail authorities in Virginia had active 287(g) agreements.⁹ The program comes with money for participating agencies: a $100,000 vehicle stipend, a $7,500 bonus per certified officer, and monthly reimbursement for time and resources.⁸ Roughly 370 people in Virginia were arrested by local officers acting under 287(g) authority.¹

Not every jurisdiction has cooperated. Alexandria has no 287(g) agreement and its police do not assist with civil immigration enforcement or arrest anyone based solely on an administrative warrant.¹⁰ Richmond Mayor Danny Avula has said the city does not coordinate with ICE on deportation activities and Richmond police have not signed a 287(g) agreement.¹¹ Fairfax County ended its intergovernmental service agreement with ICE in 2018 and will not hold inmates past their release date absent a court-issued criminal detainer.¹²

Where People Are Being Held

ICE holds detainees in Virginia through intergovernmental service agreements with several facilities, including the Caroline Detention Facility, the Farmville Detention Center, Riverside Regional Jail, and Southwest Regional Jail.⁶

Farmville Detention Center

The Farmville Detention Center is operated by CoreCivic, which has owned the facility since 2025.¹³ The detainee population more than doubled between October 2024 and May 2025, rising from 241 to 542.¹⁴ In fiscal year 2026, average daily population reached 685, with about 68 percent having no prior convictions.⁶

Caroline Detention Facility

The Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green has held ICE detainees since 2018 under a contract managed by Caroline County. Standard capacity is 336 beds.¹⁵¹⁶⁶

Riverside Regional Jail

Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County signed a contract with ICE in May 2025 and now draws more than half of its total revenue from holding ICE detainees.¹⁷ Between January 2025 and early April 2026, 7,344 people were booked there under a designation tied to federal immigration enforcement.⁶ The contract bars public disclosures without ICE approval, and the released version is heavily redacted, hiding payment amounts and the scope of services. Rep. Jennifer McClellan has raised concerns that the financial incentives could compromise detainees’ civil rights.¹⁸

Chantilly Field Office

The ICE Washington Field Office in Chantilly drew scrutiny in August 2025 after advocacy groups reported it had become a makeshift detention site. The Free Them All VA Coalition said detainees were denied adequate food and water, slept on floors, lacked medical care, and endured unsanitary conditions. Poder VA reported up to 100 people held for as long as five days, well beyond ICE’s standard 12-hour limit. After a month of seeking access, members of Congress visited on September 26, 2025, and reported that conditions “appear to have improved.”¹⁹ The ACLU of Virginia sent ICE a demand letter on September 4, 2025, and later cited the Chantilly conditions in a FOIA lawsuit seeking records about potential expansion of detention in Virginia.²⁰

What Governor Spanberger Has Done

Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who took office in January 2026, moved quickly to undo her predecessor’s approach. On her first day, she signed an executive order rescinding Youngkin’s directive requiring state agencies to participate in 287(g).¹¹ On February 4, 2026, she issued Executive Directive 1, ordering the Virginia State Police, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Wildlife, and the Marine Resources Commission to terminate all existing 287(g) agreements. The directive said those agreements “improperly cede accountability and discretion over Virginia law enforcement to the federal government.”²¹

Her orders did not reach local sheriffs or municipal police departments, so dozens of local 287(g) agreements remained active after the state-level programs ended.⁸

On May 20, 2026, Spanberger issued Executive Order 16, which bars the use of state property as a staging area, processing site, or operational base for federal civil immigration enforcement. State agencies must verify that federal officers have valid warrants before accessing state property, and the order directs the creation of online resources so residents can learn their legal rights and report misconduct. The same day, she vetoed HB 650 and SB 351, which would have restricted immigration enforcement in “protected spaces” like courthouses, schools, hospitals, and polling places. Spanberger argued the bills would have placed local officials in “the untenable position of choosing between violating state law or federal law” and would have created a “false sense of legal protection” for immigrant families.²² The ACLU of Virginia said the executive order “does nothing to keep Virginians safe” compared with the vetoed bills.²³

What the 2026 General Assembly Passed

The 2026 session produced several bills aimed at limiting local cooperation with ICE. The centerpiece was SB 783 and its identical companion HB 1441, which bars state and local law enforcement from maintaining, renewing, or entering federal immigration agreements unless specific conditions are met. Officers may not use resources to help identify, arrest, or penalize people for civil immigration violations. The law carves out exceptions for valid judicial warrants, judicial subpoenas, and transfers of adult detainees from correctional facilities upon receipt of a federal immigration detainer.²⁴ Spanberger signed the bill on April 22, 2026, and it takes effect July 1, 2026. The attorney general has authority to enforce it.⁹

The legislature also passed HB 1482 and SB 352, which prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing face coverings while performing official duties. Violations may carry disciplinary action or a Class 1 misdemeanor.²⁵ Those measures responded to reports that ICE agents had run operations in Virginia while masked and unidentified.

Once SB 783 takes effect, local agencies that want to keep 287(g) agreements will have to meet the statutory conditions, and the attorney general will decide whether to enforce compliance.⁹

The Hanover County Facility That Wasn’t Built

In January 2026, DHS notified Hanover County it planned to buy a 552,587-square-foot warehouse on Lakeridge Parkway in Ashland and convert it into an ICE processing facility.²⁶ On January 28, 2026, more than 1,000 residents from across greater Richmond protested outside the Hanover County administration building. Concerns included impact on local law enforcement, tax revenue, ICE’s human rights record, and the lack of community input in the site selection. The Board of Supervisors opposed the plan, with Chair Sean Davis saying the board objected “because of these well-planned, current land uses.” On January 30, 2026, the owner, Jim Pattison Developments, confirmed the sale would not proceed.²⁷

Active Lawsuits

Several cases in Virginia’s federal courts are pushing back on ICE conduct and detention conditions.

Rodriguez Guerra v. Perry. A class action certified in May 2024 in the Eastern District of Virginia challenges the ICE Washington Field Office’s practice of continuing to detain people for months after they have won their immigration cases, including grants of asylum or Convention Against Torture protection. The ACLU of Virginia and allied groups represent the plaintiffs, who argue the practice violates ICE’s own policies and constitutional protections against arbitrary detention.²⁸

ACLU Foundation v. ICE. Filed October 1, 2025, in the Southern District of New York, the suit seeks to force ICE to release records about plans to expand immigration detention in Virginia after the agency failed to respond to a FOIA request submitted in August 2025.²⁰

Gyasi v. Scott. An emergency habeas petition filed May 26, 2026, in the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of Anabella Gyasi, a pregnant Ghanaian national held at Dulles International Airport for over a week with her four-year-old son, who has disabilities. The petition alleged they were denied adequate food, hygiene, and medical care. On May 29, 2026, a federal judge ordered that the mother and child were “not to spend another night in Dulles Airport.”²⁹

Jane P. et al v. Salazar et al. Filed June 1, 2026, in the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of two siblings, ages 15 and 16, held for 315 days at Youth for Tomorrow, a residential care facility in Bristow operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The suit alleged ORR unlawfully prolonged their detention despite a vetted sponsor and denied them necessary medical and educational services. The children were released to their sponsor on June 10, 2026.³⁰³¹

Where ICE Can and Cannot Operate

Anyone assuming schools, hospitals, and similar places are off-limits to ICE should know the picture has shifted. On January 20, 2025, DHS rescinded the Biden-era policy that had broadly defined protected areas to include schools, hospitals, bus stops, playgrounds, and homeless shelters. A replacement framework issued January 31, 2025, dropped bright-line rules and left enforcement decisions to local field office leadership on a case-by-case basis.³²

A federal court has imposed a partial limit. In February 2025, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang issued a preliminary injunction blocking ICE from following the new directives at roughly 1,400 specified places of worship across 36 states, in response to a challenge by religious groups. At those locations, ICE must continue to follow the older 2021 policy, which requires avoiding enforcement at houses of worship “to the fullest extent possible” and requires prior headquarters approval for any planned action.³² Virginia’s own attempt to codify broader protected-space rules through HB 650 and SB 351 ended with Spanberger’s May 2026 vetoes, leaving the state relying on her executive order and the patchwork of federal court rulings.

1
WRIC. ICE Arrests Nearly 11,000 Across Virginia
2
The Daily Record. ICE Arrests DC Region Trump Immigration
3
Virginia Mercury. FOIA Friday: Records Reveal Surge in ICE Arrests Across Virginia
4
WTVR. ICE Petersburg Wednesday Jan. 14, 2026
5
DHS. Making Virginia Safe Again: ICE Arrests Sexual Predators, Drug Traffickers
6
VPM. Virginia Detention ICE 287(g) Data
7
VPM. Abigail Spanberger Executive Order Immigration 287(g) ICE Youngkin Trump
8
Bolts Magazine. Virginia Spanberger Quits ICE Program 287(g)
9
VPM. Immigration Bills Salim Lopez ICE Enforcement 287(g) Spanberger
10
City of Alexandria. Immigration
11
Virginia Mercury. In Newly Democratic Virginia, Immigration Enforcement Becomes Early Test for Spanberger
12
Fairfax County. Sheriff Terminates Intergovernmental Service Agreement ICE
13
CoreCivic. Farmville Detention Center
14
WRIC. Detainees More Than Double at Farmville Detention Center Since October of 2024
15
DHS Office of Inspector General. OIG-23-51
16
Global Detention Project. Caroline Detention Facility
17
Legal Aid Justice Center. New Resource Reveals 32 State and Local Government Contracts With ICE Across Virginia
18
Rep. Jennifer McClellan. VA Lawmaker Wants Transparency ICE Agreement Riverside Jail House Detainees
19
Rep. James Walkinshaw. Walkinshaw News
20
ACLU. ACLU Sue ICE for Records Regarding Potential Expansion of Immigration Detention in Virginia
21
Governor of Virginia. Executive Directive 1 (2026)
22
Governor of Virginia. Governor Spanberger News Release
23
Virginia Mercury. Spanberger’s ICE Actions Deepen Divide With Virginia Democrats
24
Virginia Legislative Information System. SB783
25
WRIC. Bills Immigration Clear General Assembly
26
Hanover County. Hanover County Civic Alert
27
VPM. Ashland DHS Facility Lakeridge Parkway
28
National Immigration Project. Dozens of Immigrants Join First-of-Its-Kind Class Action Lawsuit
29
ACLU of Virginia. Pregnant Mother and Toddler With Disabilities Ordered Not to Spend Another Night in Dulles
30
ACLU of Virginia. Jane P. et al v. Salazar et al.
31
Courthouse News Service. Jane P. v. Salazar Habeas Petition
32
ICE. Protected Areas