Virginia judge pauses Spanberger’s restrictions on ICE cooperation

A judge paused a key part of Virginia’s new restrictions on local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, handing Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration a major legal setback as a similar fight plays out in neighboring Maryland.

George H.W. Bush-appointed Judge Robert Payne on Monday blocked a key piece of a law signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger that heavily restricts interagency cooperation and would have required local sheriffs to modify or dissolve their individual policies, known as 287(g) agreements, by a Tuesday deadline.

Payne ruled the federal government is likely to prevail on several claims in its lawsuit against Virginia, finding “the Virginia 287(g) Law violates the Contracts Clause [of the] U.S. Constitution because it is a ‘substantial impairment’ of the existing contracts between the federal government and Virginia localities.”

Payne did not strike down the law, but paused its implementation as the feds’ case against Richmond proceeds.

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He also found that Virginia’s law wrongly attempts to “regulate conduct of federal law enforcement in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”

“At this point, saying ‘I told you so’ seems almost pointless,” Virginia House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, told Fox News Digital when asked about the news.

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Kilgore said Republicans repeatedly warned Spanberger’s administration that its limits on cooperation with ICE would waste taxpayer money and run into these kinds of legal problems.

“States cannot tell the federal government how to do its job. But Democrats refused to listen,” Kilgore said.

In that regard, Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., drafted a bill at the federal level aimed directly at Spanberger’s law.

Cline’s 287(g) Cooperation Act would require state and local law enforcement to enter into interagency agreements with ICE as a condition of receiving federal Community-Oriented Policing (COPS) grants.

Additionally, all five of Virginia’s Republican members of Congress wrote Spanberger earlier this year urging her not to undo former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s statewide directive of Richmond-Washington cooperation on the immigration enforcement front.

The major setback to Democrats’ plans came as neighboring Maryland found itself in a similar legal fight, though a judge has not yet ruled in that case.

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Gov. Wes Moore allowed a similar bill to become law earlier this year that would prevent most cooperation between local sheriffs and ICE. Despite Maryland being one of the bluest states in the union, the majority of its counties are geographically red.

That dynamic revealed itself as 17 of its 24 sheriffs led by Harford County’s Jeffrey Gahler, Wicomico County’s Mike Lewis and Frederick County’s Charles Jenkins launched a lawsuit against the law.

“They want to do everything they can to handcuff law enforcement, handcuff sheriffs across the state,” Jenkins said in March.

Bill sponsor Sen. Clarence Lam, D-Elkridge, argued the measure ensures local jails won’t be used as a “front door to the federal government’s oftentimes deportation pipeline,” according to Maryland Matters.

Lam’s Community Trust Act requires a court order to provide immigration-related information and to transfer inmates based on immigration status, according to the outlet.

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Moore did not sign the legislation, but it became law after he notified Senate President Bill Ferguson IV, D-Baltimore, of his decision after the bill passed 32-15.

Gahler’s coalition later sued, setting up a potentially similar battle in Greenbelt federal court to the one making a splash across the Potomac.