Steve Descano defends campaign policy change on illegal immigrant prosecutions

According to the now-nixed statement, Descano would weigh “immigration consequences” during the charging process and plea deals with illegal immigrants, pledging to mitigate or outright avoid the “collateral” consequences for illegal immigrants when possible.

“Steve’s office will take immigration consequences into account when making charging and plea decisions,” Descano’s campaign website previously read. “Although prosecutors typically refer to immigration consequences as ‘collateral consequences,’ avoiding the unnecessary destruction of families and communities will be a top priority for Steve as Commonwealth’s Attorney. Wherever possible, Steve will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences.”

Descano accused Jordan of wrongly conflating his policy position as a candidate with his official policy as Fairfax County’s chief prosecutor.

“The campaign website is not my policy,” Descano told Jordan, noting that his campaign published that page containing the subsection on “Protecting Immigrant Communities” when he first ran for commonwealth’s attorney in 2019. After surviving two recall efforts, Descano is up for reelection in 2027.

“You are misrepresenting my policies. My policies do not say that we do not prosecute,” Descano continued, before Jordan interjected.

“Well, if you’re proud of your policies, why’d you change your website?” Jordan pressed.

“Because that’s not my policy,” Descano said. “As I told you, sir, that is a campaign statement that I made before I was commonwealth’s attorney.”

“It had been up for six years,” Jordan said. “A week after we sent you a letter saying we want you to come testify — shazam, you change it. I’m just asking, is that coincidental?”

“I could not believe that people were so obtuse that they could not realize what the difference between a campaign statement and an actual office policy is,” Descano said, reportedly drawing gasps from supporters in the audience.

“So when you make campaign statements, those aren’t true?” Jordan questioned. “You aren’t being honest with your voters?”

Descano countered, “That’s not what I’m saying at all, sir.”

Descano said he was hoping to appear on Capitol Hill to talk about his office policies, “not be distracted by a campaign statement.” The two-term Democrat reiterated that the campaign page went live a year before he was sworn in and handled any cases.

“This is almost laughable,” Jordan said, holding up a printed copy of Descano’s campaign statement. “This is your policy. You said it right here. You told the voters: If you elect me, I will take into account immigration consequences when making charging and plea decisions.”

Descano waved a different document in the air. “This is my policy. Not what you have in your hand.”

“Oh, so what you said to the voters is not real, doesn’t count?” Jordan asked.

“What I’m saying is as an officeholder, my office is run by my policies,” Descano said.

A 2020 procedure memorandum, issued by Descano’s office the year he took office, made comprehensive changes to the way Fairfax County prosecutors negotiate pleas, charge suspects, and recommend sentencing “to bring such practices in line with the values and needs of the community and reduce mass incarceration.”

Mirroring much of the language on his campaign site, Descano’s signed guidelines for plea bargaining, charging decisions, and sentencing recommendations instruct all assistant prosecutors to “consider immigration consequences where possible,” namely, “the detrimental impact that deportation/removal has on the families and communities those removed or deported leave behind.”

Last week, the Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation into Descano’s office for allegedly offering what federal investigators say is preferential treatment to illegal immigrants in criminal cases.

Descano took down the campaign page weeks following the Feb. 23 stabbing death of Stephanie Minter, a mother allegedly murdered by illegal immigrant Abdul Jalloh while she was waiting at a Fairfax County bus stop.

Critics, including Minter’s surviving family, blamed Descano for allowing Jalloh, who has a history of stabbing Fairfax County residents, to be released back into the community repeatedly despite multiple warnings from local police to county prosecutors about Jalloh’s high likelihood of harming someone again.

Descano’s office had dropped a slew of charges against Jalloh stemming from more than 30 arrests related to rape, assault, drug possession, property destruction, identity theft, trespassing, firing a weapon, grand larceny, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and pickpocketing.

Opponents see Descano, one of the most prominent progressive prosecutors in Northern Virginia, as being soft on crime and refusing to hold illegal immigrants, in particular, accountable.

In the 2019 election cycle, Descano received significant campaign funding from groups bankrolled by Democratic mega donor George Soros, including the Justice and Public Safety PAC, a Soros-backed political action committee that works to elect left-wing prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform.

Among Descano’s reform efforts, as Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney, he has created a “diversion” program meant to provide criminally charged defendants with an “off-ramp from incarceration.” Instead of jail time, program participants are referred for mental health counseling, job skills training, and affordable housing.

Defendants participating in the program must have “an underlying issue that has led to their criminal involvement,” and they can have their cases dismissed as a reward for completing the program.

Descano’s office touts that the “unprecedentedly expansive” diversion program, called Taking Root, is run in partnership with Opportunities Alternatives Resolutions, a restorative justice organization that provides post-release “support services.”

Jalloh, the suspected murderer from Sierra Leone, was living in OAR-supplied transitional housing at the time he allegedly stabbed a homeless victim in 2025. According to police records obtained by the Washington Examiner, Jalloh was out on probation for a separate 2023 stabbing conviction.