Report contrasts Descano campaign pledge with his testimony to Congress

The pledge. According to the report, Descano's campaign website promised for seven years that "[w]herever possible," he "will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences." It also said: "If two people commit the same crime, but only one's punishment includes deportation, that's a perversion of justice and not a reflection of the values of Fairfax County." The report says the statements were removed after the committee began asking about them. It says his office explained they were taken down "because it was being misinterpreted as the office's official policy."

The testimony. At a May 14, 2026 subcommittee hearing, the report says, Descano testified that the website statements were "not [his] policy." He said he "could not believe that ... people were so obtuse" that they couldn't tell a campaign statement from office policy. He also said his written policy is "narrow" and "written with legal permanent residents in mind for minor crimes."

The letters. In a July 2, 2026 letter, the report says, Descano described the cases at issue as "a few individual criminal cases ... out of over 10,000 cases" a year. In a Sept. 7 letter, it says, he wrote that the campaign statements "were from 2019," before his office's 2020 written policy. He also said the office's consideration of immigration consequences is "not limited to any category of immigrants" and argued that the policy does not cover dropped charges. The report says the letter also attributed the lack of prosecution in some cases to victims and witnesses.

The committee says Descano's September admission contradicts his testimony, and that its subpoena seeks the cases in which his office applied the policy. The report also notes that his office has a separate 2021 policy barring staff from assisting federal agents with civil immigration enforcement.

The report was prepared by the committee's Republican majority staff and relies in part on nonpublic records the committee says are on file with it. Those records have not been released. All News Virginia has requested comment from the Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office and will update this story if it responds.

Source: "Fairfax County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies," interim staff report of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, released Oct. 20, 2026.Read the report (PDF).

Fairfax County is a county in Northern Virginia. Its county seat is Fairfax, an independent city.