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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is warning that subpoenas are on the table if county prosecutors accused of going easy on illegal immigrants who commit crimes do not cooperate.
Jordan’s committee is investigating district attorneys for so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” who have been accused of taking immigration status into account when pursuing criminal complaints, even when the alleged crime has nothing to do with the suspect’s legal status.
“If we have to, we’ll use subpoenas to get the documents that we think they may not be giving us. There’s a process we always go through. We ask for things, we ask again, we explain why, we work with their office — in some cases their counsel — and back and forth,” Jordan explained in an interview with Fox News Digital. “And then if we have to use subpoenas, we certainly will do that … but we want to know the facts.”
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Of particular concern, Jordan said, is Fairfax County, Virginia, DA Steve Descano. Descano was recently thrust under scrutiny after the stabbing death of 41-year-old U.S. citizen Stephanie Minter, whose accused killer came to the U.S. illegally from Sierra Leone in 2012.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the man had been arrested over 30 times before Minter’s killing.
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Descano, who has led the Fairfax County District Attorney’s Office since January 2020, issued plea bargaining guidance that year saying prosecutors should “consider immigration consequences where possible” and consider “the collateral immigration consequences of the specific crime(s) the defendant is charged with,” according to local outlet WTOP News.
Fairfax County is known as a sanctuary jurisdiction, meaning local law enforcement is not bound to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
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“This is one of the dumbest policies I’ve ever heard of. You’re going to tell local law enforcement not to work with federal law enforcement when it comes to enforcing federal law?” Jordan said. “And then you have people like Mr. Descano, who are releasing bad guys, and they have a stated policy saying, you know, ‘We will look at their immigration status before we make a decision on charging,’ and in certain clear agreements and they’re releasing guys. You have then you have bad things happen.”
He noted Minter’s case as an example.
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Descano’s 2019 campaign for DA notably received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Justice and Public Safety PAC, which boasts billionaire George Soros among its backers.
Fairfax County happens to be a major suburb of Washington, D.C. Jordan argued its proximity to the country’s national security epicenter made its sanctuary policies even more dangerous.
“That’s definitely a concern that I think probably any American with common sense would have,” he said.
But there are other sanctuary jurisdictions his committee would probe as well, Jordan suggested.
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“You’ve got not just Descano, but it looks like Alvin Bragg up in New York, [Larry Krasner] in Philadelphia, so many of these DAs who are doing the same darn thing,” he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Descano’s office for comment.
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