Immigration enforcement is producing results not seen in decades. More than 80,000 illegal aliens accepted voluntary departure orders between January 2025 and March 2026 — at least seven times the roughly 11,400 who did so during the final 15 months of the Biden administration, according to court data compiled by the Vera Institute of Justice. Monthly voluntary departures surged from fewer than 750 to more than 9,000 in a single month. For the first time in decades, the unauthorized population in the United States is shrinking.
But sanctuary jurisdictions across the country are broadcasting the opposite message — and in doing so, they are both endangering their own communities and laying the groundwork for the next surge of illegal immigration.
The scope of the damage is staggering. In New York, the refusal to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 6,947 criminal illegal aliens since January 2025. The crimes committed by these individuals include 29 homicides, 2,509 assaults, 305 robberies, 199 burglaries, 392 drug offenses, 300 weapons offenses, and 207 sexual predatory offenses — all in a single state. ICE Director Todd Lyons personally wrote to New York Attorney General Letitia James asking her not to release the more than 7,000 criminal aliens still in state and local custody. Her office did not respond.
In Fairfax County, Virginia, sanctuary politicians have released a parade of dangerous criminals despite explicit ICE detainers requesting they be held. In May, ICE arrested Walvin Victor Hugo Garcia, an illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child under 13, aggravated sexual battery of a victim under 13, using a computer to commit a sex offense with a minor, and distributing drugs to a minor. ICE had lodged a detainer when Garcia was first arrested in June 2025. Fairfax County released him anyway.
Garcia’s case was not an anomaly. In the same DHS press release, the department listed three other Fairfax County sanctuary failures in recent months: Roni Mendez-Escobar, charged with 17 felony counts including child pornography with intent to distribute, released despite an ICE detainer; Misael Lopez Gomez, charged with murdering his own three-month-old daughter; and Anibal Armando Chavarria Muy, charged with fatally stabbing a man inside his home. Governor Abigail Spanberger’s executive orders banning state cooperation with ICE — signed during her first days in office — enabled every one of these releases.
The pattern extends far beyond New York and Virginia. In Santa Clara, California, two Honduran illegal aliens accused of murdering a 24-year-old single mother were released over ICE’s objection. In San Francisco, a Venezuelan illegal alien confirmed as a fatal stabbing suspect had been in local custody before the killing. In Illinois, Governor Pritzker’s sanctuary policies led to the release of a child sex abuser whom ICE had to re-arrest after a vehicle pursuit. In Wisconsin, ICE asked sanctuary politicians not to release an illegal alien charged with sexually assaulting an elderly victim. DHS put California, Illinois, and New York on formal notice in September 2025 for their failure to honor detainers. Illinois’s Attorney General refused to accept the letter.
The crime data alone would justify congressional action. But the problem goes deeper than individual cases, as devastating as those cases are.
Enforcement is working where it is allowed to work. The 80,000 voluntary departures — the 700 percent increase — happened because enforcement made it harder to live and work in the United States illegally. Monthly departures surged after high-profile raids, after bond hearings were restricted, after detention capacity expanded. The message was clear: if you are here illegally, there is nowhere to hide.
Sanctuary jurisdictions are broadcasting the opposite message. They are publicly refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, releasing criminals that ICE has specifically asked them to hold, and demonstrating to the world that there are places in this country where immigration law does not apply. That message will be heard — not just by the people who are here now, but by the millions weighing whether to come next.
Every sanctuary jurisdiction that defies a federal detainer is an advertisement for the next surge. Every criminal alien released over ICE’s objection tells the next wave of illegal border crossers exactly where to go.
The enforcement gains that Congress is seeing today required enormous resources — tens of thousands of officers, billions in funding, and the political will to act. Those gains will be wasted if sanctuary jurisdictions are allowed to continue functioning as magnets for illegal immigration. The question is not whether another surge will come — it is whether Congress will close the sanctuary loophole before it does.
This is not a partisan issue — it is a question of whether the immigration system has any credibility at all. When local officials can override federal law enforcement and put convicted and accused criminals back on the street, it undermines every element of the system. It makes enforcement more dangerous and more expensive. It puts communities at risk. And it tells the American people that no matter how aggressively the federal government enforces immigration law, a single local politician can undo it.
The House Judiciary Committee has already passed H.R. 7640, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act. The bill would restrict federal law enforcement grants to jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE detainers, redirect those funds to jurisdictions that do, provide immunity for local officials who cooperate with federal law enforcement, and give crime victims a private right of action against sanctuary jurisdictions that released the person who harmed them. The bill is ready for a floor vote.
Nearly 7,000 criminal aliens released in one state. A child rapist freed in Fairfax County. Murders in California, stabbings in San Francisco, child sex abuse in Illinois. Eighty thousand people leaving voluntarily because enforcement is working — while sanctuary cities advertise that it doesn’t have to. The evidence is overwhelming, the bill is written, and it has already passed committee. The only thing missing is a vote.
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