VACPUSA

By: Mike Roark

On February 21st, ICE Out of Alexandria (Instagram) attended a City Council public hearing, using the public discussion period to pressure the council to defund Alexandria’s Sheriff’s Office if they continue to voluntarily collaborate with ICE. Comrades from VACPUSA were in attendance as part of the anti-ICE coalition. 

The City of Alexandria is an incorporated city in Virginia, meaning it’s equivalent to a county and the local government serves a similar function. Accordingly, Alexandria elects its own sheriff that manages a department separate from the police department. The current sheriff is Sean Casey. He and his department have been voluntarily cooperating with ICE and releasing detained immigrants into their custody. Virginia law would only require him to do so if presented with a judicial warrant (signed by a judge). Instead, the sheriff’s department reaches out to ICE to see if they have an administrative warrant (signed by a bureaucrat) on a detained immigrant. Despite his claims otherwise, Sean Casey is a collaborationist. He is spreading the fear of disappearance through our communities by using brutish terror tactics.

Before Trump was even inaugurated, the Alexandria City Council denounced the sheriff’s practice of honoring administrative warrants, but like most Virginia sheriffs, Casey ran unopposed in 2025. The City Council is now beginning the 2027 budgetary process and ICE Out of Alexandria had a large turnout to the public discussion period. Several people brought their own signs, but organizers distributed even more. When the cameras cut from the council members and speakers to the crowd, signs reading “NO FUNDS FOR ICE COLLABORATION”, “SHERIFF CASEY: STOP DOING ICE’S DIRTY WORK”, and “FUNDS FOR HOUSING & EDUCATION. NO $$$ FOR ICE COLLABORATION” filled the audience. Many of the speakers brought their own varied perspectives to denouncing the sheriff’s collaboration with ICE, and called on the Council to defund the sheriff’s department if they continued to honor administrative warrants, but ICE Out of Alexandria were not the only speakers. Many workers spoke about difficulties with the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority, including their backlog and illegal evictions. Many children spoke about the Alexandria School Board cutting language courses and firing teachers. ICE Out of Alexandria did fantastic work tying issues faced by the community to the funding of a collaborationist sheriff in signs and speakers. Fundamentally, budgets are moral documents and the continued funding of Sheriff Casey while workers and children are deprived is a moral failure.  

Alexandria’s 2026 budget for the Sheriff’s Department was a little less than $36 million. For context, the Parks Department received about $34 million, Alexandria City Police Department received $75 million, Alexandria City Public Schools received $437 million, and the total budget was $1.2 billion. The Casey’s sheriff’s department is not a large part of the total budget, but that also means that they would deeply feel a budget cut. Many of the speakers used the language of “your tax dollars are being used to help ICE”. While we recognize that treating “tax payers” as a class has been historically used to support white supremacy and settler colonialism, the local organizers deftly directed this energy into recognizing the civic reality and meeting the audience, and those new to the struggle, where they are. They were not treating “tax payer” as a class, but as a civic reality and as a moral reflection, meeting their audience where they are. 

Alexandria is just one example of a Virginia sheriff willingly helping ICE. The sheriff of Loudoun County has gleefully disappeared over 250 immigrants to ICE, but the coalition against ICE is stronger than ever, and we are excited to see movements like ICE Out of Loudon opposing these barbaric policies. Thanks to the efforts of local groups including La CollectiVA’s Free Them All campaign, New Virginia Majority’s Solidarity Commission, and SURJ are doing excellent work uniting the struggles across northern Virginia. VACPUSA will continue working with coalitions until ICE is permanently out of Virginia. Sheriffs like Sean Casey are collaborationists that have chosen fascism. We must never forget their crimes, but neither can we ever forgive their inhumanity.