The Virginia House Public Safety Subcommittee #3 advanced a sweeping package of immigration-related bills — restricting ICE enforcement in courthouses, schools, healthcare facilities, and polling places; limiting Virginia law enforcement cooperation with ICE under 287(g) agreements; requiring officer identification; and enhancing penalties for impersonating federal law enforcement — with most bills reporting 4-1 over objections from the Virginia Sheriff's Association.
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Eli Weinger (Students for Equity and Reform in Virginia) objected that the substitute changed the educational institution notification requirement from mandatory to permissive, stating 'We would prefer if that were changed back. The notification requirement is a crucial component of this legislation. We have friends who don't go to class, who don't go to school, who have dropped out because they are afraid.' Beatriz Ammerman (Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations) also stated 'we prefer also, as the previous speakers, to go back to the original message.' The subcommittee did not reverse the change.
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“Since January 2025, ICE has reversed long standing policies and started ramping up warrantless civil and administrative arrests within our courthouses. They've shown up in courts across the Commonwealth, sometimes masked, often unidentified, and many times without a warrant. They've conducted chaotic civil arrests that are occurring on the steps and in the halls of our courthouse. And they are confusing attorneys, bystanders, victims, witnesses, and even our court personnel who are charged with maintaining court safety and security.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood morning. I'm going to call this meeting of House Public Safety Subcommittee number three to order. Members will take attendance on the electronic voting board. Clerk will close the roll, A quorum is present. All right, we have a large number of bills and a very large number of people here in the room and also signed up to speak online. We also have a full public safety meeting in one hour. So we're going to do our best to get this all done in one hour. I know that there are a lot of folks who are extremely passionate and have a lot to say about a number of these bills. Unfortunately, just due to the time constraints, we're going to need to put a limit on the amount of time we give for testimony. I think what we're going to do, there's a lot of these bills also that are related to each other. I think that we'll find as the docket moves along that we're going to consolidate a number of these bills and hear them in sort of bunches based on topic areas. So if you've written out a three minute speech on each of…
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