A sheriff in Virginia said working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made his county safer during testimony this week before the Senate Budget Committee.
While sanctuary jurisdictions resist all efforts to work with ICE, Michael Chapman, the sheriff of Loudoun County, Virginia, praised his department’s partnership with ICE for helping to combat crime in his county.
“It’s worked for us,” he said during his testimony on Tuesday. “It’s kept our crime rate down extraordinarily low.”
The Senate Budget Committee continues to debate ICE reforms, with Senate Democrats framing anti-ICE “sanctuary” policies as “helping to make America great,” a claim that Chapman and committee Republicans have rejected.
Other recent reports also support that many of America’s safest cities are in jurisdictions that cooperate with ICE.
U.S. News & World Report’s Safest Places to Live in the U.S. list for 2025-2026 includes several cities located in states or counties with laws requiring municipal authorities to cooperate or coordinate with ICE.
Under the Trump administration, ICE has expanded its 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement agencies by 957%, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently shared on social media.
“Together, we have gone from 135 agreements to OVER 1,400 across forty states,” DHS shared in the Facebook post. “There’s a reason why 7 of the top 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE! Unfortunately, sanctuary politicians are outlawing cooperation with ICE, instead choosing to RELEASE criminal illegal aliens from their jails back to the streets to VICTIMIZE more Americans.”
The 287(g) partnerships allow county jails and sheriff’s departments to work directly with ICE and carry out some immigration enforcement duties. One of those includes honoring ICE detainers so criminal illegal aliens are not released back onto the streets.
During his testimony, Chapman also called out neighboring Fairfax County and its sanctuary policies. Fairfax County made national headlines after 41-year-old Stephanie Minter was stabbed to death at a bus stop by an illegal alien with a criminal record.
Sierra Leone national Abdul Jalloh, 32, had more than 30 prior arrests and was released the day before the murder without alerting ICE.
Fairfax County has repeatedly refused to turn over deportation targets from its jails to ICE. Sheriff Chapman, meanwhile, said cooperating with ICE makes sense.
Despite protests from community members, Chapman signed a 287(g) agreement to actively assist ICE.
“It’s irresponsible of me to allow that to happen and let these people back into our community,” Chapman told the committee.
Those on the Senate Budget Committee also continued to debate the issue of sanctuary jurisdictions, with Democrats citing their own studies showing they, on the whole, have lower crime rates and better income levels, The Washington Times reported.
“It seems like sanctuary cities are helping to make America great,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who stormed a press conference by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last year.
Republicans have blasted sanctuary jurisdictions, which have soft-on-crime policies along with refusing to work with ICE. Oftentimes, local officials allow repeat offenders to be released from jail with low or no bond. They also ignore ICE detainers, meaning it limits or prohibits ICE agents from picking up illegal immigrants in the jail.
ICE issued 201,340 detainer requests in 2025, according to DHS. The department had 17,864 detainers declined, meaning someone was released despite the ICE request to hold them.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who ran the hearing, tried to broker a deal with Democrats: Agree to curtail sanctuary jurisdictions and Republicans would compromise ICE reforms.
Graham, vocal in his support for President Donald Trump and immigration enforcement, has written legislation that would hold politicians from sanctuary jurisdictions accountable if illegal immigrants are released.
“If a local official or government, anybody, refuses to cooperate with the federal government in turning over people subject to deportation under federal law, they can be prosecuted,” Graham said of his legislation.
In Fairfax County, where the recent bus stop slaying occurred, the sheriff’s office released 744 ICE deportation targets in 2024 — more than two a day, Jessica Vaughan, who tracks sanctuary cities for the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Times.
The murder suspect, Jalloh, had more than 100 run-ins with county police and more than 30 arrests. The local prosecutor repeatedly offered leniency on the charges, despite police warnings to keep him behind bars.
Sheriff Chapman said his neighbor Fairfax County only notified ICE of an impending release “about seven times last year.”
Other top 10 safe cities, No. 5 Homosassa Springs and No. 9 Weston. Both Florida cities support immigration enforcement and cooperation policies with ICE.
Both Florida and Georgia have state-level mandates that require local law enforcement to coordinate with ICE.
In February 2025, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed Florida law enforcement to work with ICE, requiring all 67 county sheriffs and state law enforcement agencies to participate in the 287(g) program.
“Partnering with local law enforcement has been tremendously successful, including 40,000 arrests in Florida,” DHS said in its social media post.
The Georgia Criminal Alien Track and Report Act of 2024 requires local police to forge agreements with federal authorities to assist in immigration enforcement. If a jurisdiction fails to cooperate with DHS, they risk losing state funding, according to the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force.
“If you are in our country illegally and committing crimes, you have no place in Georgia,” Gov. Brian Kemp said after signing the law.
