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FIRST ON FOX: Fairfax County officials are in the hot seat after the Trump Department of Homeland Security says their sanctuary policies allowed an illegal alien to walk free despite having been arrested ten times and having 19 criminal charges, including for malicious shooting and unlawful wounding.
The top Fairfax County official is disputing DHS’ characterization of it as a sanctuary county. However, Salvadoran national Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez, 27, was arrested 10 times and has been charged with 19 different crimes in just over seven years, between March 19, 2018, and July 18, 2025, according to DHS.
He was finally arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 24 after DHS said officials at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center declined to honor an immigration detainer it lodged against him on July 18.
The July detainer was not the first time Fairfax County ignored an ICE request to hold Melendez-Gonzalez. ICE also lodged a detainer against him in 2023. According to DHS, “Fairfax County officials refused to honor the immigration detainer and released this dangerous criminal alien back into the community.”
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The agency said that Melendez-Gonzalez entered the U.S. illegally in June 2015. An immigration judge ordered his removal from the country just over a year later in October 2016.
Despite this, Melendez-Gonzalez stayed in the country for just over ten years, racking up a long list of offenses in Virginia. He has arrests for three counts of malicious shooting, unlawful wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, assault and battery, assault on a family member, grand larceny, trespassing, possessing a false government identification, public intoxication, disturbing the peace and making a false statement to a law enforcement officer.
He has two felony convictions for unlawful wounding stemming from a 2023 shooting, which carry sentences of three years in confinement. However, his sentence was suspended down to a year.
According to a statement by the Fairfax County Police Department, detectives arrested Melendez-Gonzalez in August 2023 in connection with a shooting that injured three men outside a business in Falls Church, Virginia.
Fox News Digital reached out to Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano, a Democrat, for the reason for Melendez-Gonzalez’s sentence being suspended. A spokesperson for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office declined to comment, referring Fox News Digital to the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, which the spokesperson said, “is responsible for handling ICE detainers.”
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Allyson Conroy, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, which runs the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, told Fox News Digital that “we did not have a judicial warrant on file from ICE for Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez for either date, Aug. 28, 2023, nor for July 18 of this year.”
Conroy said that “as such, the Sheriff’s Office could not maintain custody over Mr. Melendez-Gonzalez.”
Regarding the suspension of Melendez-Gonalez’s sentence, Conroy said that decision “is in the discretion of the judge or the assigned Commonwealth’s Attorney,” adding, “You should contact those individuals for further information.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to representatives for Fairfax County regarding the Fairfax County Circuit Court’s decision but did not immediately receive a response.
Fairfax County Chairman Jeffrey McKay, also a Democrat, responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by saying, “Fairfax County, through the Board of Supervisors, does not control or make decisions regarding ICE detainers or judicial sentencing; those responsibilities fall to the Sheriff and the courts, respectively.”
He said that Fairfax County “does not consider itself a sanctuary jurisdiction and continues to follow all applicable federal and state laws.”
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DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, however, placed the blame squarely on the county’s sanctuary policies.
“These sanctuary policies make Virginians less safe,” McLaughlin told Fox News Digital.
“Fairfax County refused to honor two ICE arrest detainers and chose to release this criminal back onto Virginia’s streets. Virginia sanctuary politicians protected this criminal illegal alien and allowed him to terrorize American citizens,” she added.
“Thanks to the brave men and women of ICE law enforcement, this serial violent criminal with 10 previous arrests, is now off of Virginia’s streets,” said McLaughlin.
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