Arlington’s Democrat Prosecutor Admits Office Weighs Immigration Status — Even in Some Child-Victim Cases

ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va. — Arlington County and Falls Church Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, a Democrat prosecutor whose office the House Judiciary Committee says gives preferential treatment to foreign nationals, testified under oath that her prosecutors may consider immigration status when deciding criminal cases — including some matters involving child victims.

The Sept. 21, 2026 House Judiciary interim staff report quotes Dehghani-Tafti’s July 16, 2026 deposition at length. Staff conclude Democrat prosecutorial choices in Arlington are designed so some criminal aliens avoid immigration consequences that similarly situated American citizens never receive.

According to the report, Dehghani-Tafti admitted her office’s written policies do not explicitly forbid considering immigration status for any crime, regardless of severity. She testified that considering a criminal alien defendant’s immigration status can be appropriate in assault, domestic violence, certain child-victim cases, possession of a fake identification document, and certain cases involving disarming a police officer.

When committee counsel asked whether the office prohibits considering immigration status or collateral immigration consequences in cases involving child victims, Dehghani-Tafti answered, “It depends on what the charge is.” She said a foreign national would be “absolutely ineligible” for such consideration in a child sexual-assault case, but refused to give additional bright-line examples. On domestic violence, she said it “[d]epends on the case” and “a large part, on the victim.” On whether some domestic-violence cases could yield reduced sentences to avoid immigration consequences, she answered, “I said there might be.”

The Democrat prosecutor’s DACA driving-while-intoxicated policy is even more explicit. Internal guiding principles obtained by the committee instruct assistants that a DUI conviction is a “significant misdemeanor” that can block DACA renewal and lead to deportation, and that the office “must take an individual’s DACA status into account when developing offers.” In deposition, Dehghani-Tafti confirmed the policy includes fashioning a resolution or shifting to a “lateral” non-DWI charge so a DACA recipient is not convicted of DWI and can keep status.

“Sometimes that was revoke bond and spend some time in jail, you know, and then we’ll do like a lateral shift to a different charge,” she testified, according to the report. The committee’s framing is that this ensures certain foreign nationals are never convicted of DWI in Arlington County solely because they are not U.S. citizens — leniency American defendants charged with the same offense do not get.

Public statements cited in the report show the approach is longstanding. Dehghani-Tafti’s campaign materials boasted that her office “protected people’s [DACA] status” and “fashioned resolutions that avoid deportation.” She previously pledged to “take immigration status into consideration when making charging decisions on minor infractions,” trained staff on immigration consequences of prosecution, and said watching prosecutors “ignore immigration consequences” motivated her to run. She has also characterized routine ICE arrests of criminals as “abductions,” language she defended in the deposition by appearing to require a judicial warrant — a standard the report says federal law does not require and that is unavailable in most state-crime custody cases.

Asked whether it would make sense to write down which crimes disqualify someone from immigration-consequence consideration, Dehghani-Tafti pointed instead to “culture,” weekly meetings, and “impromptu conversations,” saying it “doesn’t need policies to be written down.” House staff warn that ad hoc differential treatment of violent criminals raises civil-rights and public-safety risks.

The interim report treats those Democrat prosecutorial choices as the other half of Arlington’s sanctuary system: when the County Board’s Trust Policy keeps police and the sheriff from delivering aliens to ICE, a Democrat Commonwealth’s Attorney’s charging culture can also keep convictions — and deportation triggers — off the table. Virginia citizens charged with comparable crimes, the committee argues, do not get a second set of immigration-driven outcomes.

Email the Arlington County Sheriff:
Jose Quiroz, sheriff@arlingtonva.us,

Email Parisa Dehghani-Tafti at:

Parisa Dehghani-Tafti: CWA_info@arlingtonva.us