America's Talking - Virginia Gov. Spanberger rescinds EO 47; sheriffs say ICE cooperation unchanged

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

(The Center Square) – Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s decision to rescind former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 47 does not immediately end state or local law enforcement cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to law enforcement officials and the order itself. Executive Order 47, issued by Youngkin in February 2025, required the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Department of Corrections to enter into 287(g) agreements with ICE. The order also encouraged local law enforcement agencies to participate in the federal immigration enforcement program. Spanberger rescinded the order as part of her first round of executive actions after taking office.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. New Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has been in office about a week now, and proposed policies changes are coming fast and furious, with several tax increases and other policy changes on the table. A Democrat Spanberger replaced Republican Governor Glenn Yonkin, who by Virginia law was term limited to a single term. Joining me to discuss this is Virginia resident and the Center Square's White House Bureau Chief, Sarah Roder,

Fitch. Tell us about some of these major policy shifts. It really did a 180 from going from Glenn Yon. Yonkin was really, I mean, I wouldn't say he was a MAGA necessarily. I don't know if he considered himself, but he was very close with President Trump and sort of his policies aligned a lot with President Trump's policies. And now we went from that shift to Spanburg. And she was sort of billed as sort of a moderate before when she was in Congress. and whatnot. But it appears that she's definitely sort of taken, with political terms,

like sort of really have taken a major left turn as far as policies, adopting policies. One of her first acts as governor was to rescind the whole, the agreement between ICE, for ICE to work cooperating with Virginia, you know, law enforcement, which Governor Youngkin was very strong. on. He was very, very strong on the immigration stuff. So basically saying, hey, to all the law enforcement agencies, hey, you need to be working with ICE. Now some localities, especially in the Northern Virginia area, Fairfax County in particular, sort of just went ahead and ignored that. But yeah, that was one of the first things. And now that puts the Commonwealth at risk and some of the areas here of losing federal funds. I think that'll be really interesting to see with so many

federal entities and jobs and everything, that here in Virginia, how that will kind of play out. But that was really actually one of her first acts was just signing an executive order. That was a major issue. Yes, and there are several new tax increases as well that are being proposed. And now the, because the Democrats have complete control.

They have the trifecta. They have the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. they have the General Assembly, all of that in their pocket. And they even gained a lot of seats. So there are several tax increases, which is really interesting because the Commonwealth is when Yonkin left, he left almost a half a billion dollars in over half a billion dollars in a surplus. So now there's talk of like, well, why are they raising taxes when, there's already this huge surplus. They want to tax. You know, delivery services, a lot of service-based

stuff, which is causing a lot of issues. They're already, you know, talking about some, I guess, some stuff on like leaf blowers and things of that nature. A lot of, I mean, multiple different tax increases that are being proposed. Now, whether those will actually happen or not, you know, remains to be seen. Of course, there are some, you know, more moderate Democrats that may, you know, maybe, opposed to it. There's also looking at, you know, cutting, you know, cracking down on firearms. We'll see if that happens. Generally, Virginia, of course, is a Commonwealth. It is known as, you know, rising as tyranny. It's the founding, it's really the home of the founding fathers. There's a lot of pride in here, and especially when it comes to the Second Amendment in Virginia,

that has faced a lot of pushback in years past. So it's going to be, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see, but especially being so close, I think, to really in President Trump's backyard, kind of literally and figuratively, especially as he's trying to crack down all this stuff. It'd be interesting to see how everything plays out. But yeah, a week into it, it has, everyone is talking. I mean, it's definitely sort of changing the course for the Commonwealth. Let me go back to the ICE changes and the cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration officials. We've seen in sanctuary cities and sanctuary states across the country

these just massive, oftentimes violent protests against ICE officers. You're there in Virginia, Sarah, is there concerns that the policy shift when it comes to immigration enforcement and cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal law enforcement, that you could start seeing some of these types of things break out in Virginia? Absolutely, absolutely, because one of the driving forces behind some of these protests and these, a lot of agitators and everything like that, is because ICE has to be, they have to actually be more aggressive, they have to do these rates, as opposed to in many of the states where there are those agreements between ICE and local law enforcement, where local

law enforcement just turn over, hey, if someone has a detainer, they arrest somebody, or they have a warrant detainer, whatever, they turn them to refloved to ice, so it doesn't require ICE to be as aggressive and going in and trying to find all these people. That's where you've seen in, you know, Minneapolis and, you know, California, Chicago, I mean, New York, you see these basically where they're having to do rates. That is now, that wasn't really the case before here in Virginia because of that cooperation. And now that's going to be happening. So it'll be more visual to residents. And, um, ICE is their borders are Tom Homan just said, hey, he we're going to up, he's, he's bowing to up the ice rates in Virginia.

So I assume that that probably will come. I would not be surprised, especially given, again, a close proximity to D.C. There already are a lot of protests and everything that happened here. I certainly see that ongoing. I'm not exactly sure where they'll be focused, but it will probably likely going to be happening in near future, especially in I think the Northern Virginia area. But as I said, some of those localities didn't really already sort of participate. They were standing against Yonkin.

And as I said, being a commonwealth, there's a little bit more autonomy in some of the counties, localities and everything like that. But I definitely think that that's certainly a possibility. And one of the other two, another crime thing that's also been an issue. This could also play into that. is there's proposal to lower the like the minimum or basically saying, hey, well, if you've done rape or some of these crimes, the minimum sentencing and stuff. So lowering that even more so. So, you know, so that is, that's going to be a concern too as well, you know, playing into all of this. So it'll be an interesting, it'll be an interesting time, interesting next few years.

Sarah, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.