Governor-elect calls for smart, coordinated law enforcement while warning against immigration policies that erode public trust.
RICHMOND, Va. — As national debates over immigration and public safety reignite, Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger is drawing a sharp distinction between what keeps communities secure — and what merely keeps them afraid.
Spanberger made it clear she supports enforcing the law, holding violent offenders accountable, and working with federal authorities when there’s a legitimate criminal case. But she says the way immigration enforcement is being carried out under the Trump administration is hurting public safety, not helping it.
“I think when you’re enforcing the law, you should be instilling a feeling of safety in all communities,” Spanberger told WUSA9’s Simone De Alba in a one-on-one interview. “If you’re instilling fear, are you really enforcing the law?”
Before entering politics, Spanberger served as a federal agent and intelligence officer, a background she credits with shaping her approach to both national security and community safety.
“I’m proud of my background in the intelligence community and in law enforcement,” she said. “From that perspective, I recognize that if we are hearing from the Trump administration that they want to ensure that they are going after criminals and deporting criminals, that is frankly what they should be doing. People who have broken the law should be held accountable.”
But she cautioned, “What we are seeing is efforts where time and time again, the circumstances are not that they are prioritizing that type of work. It is creating fear in communities where victims of crimes and those who would be able to provide valuable information to law enforcement are afraid to come forward.”
While Spanberger supports coordination with federal law enforcement when there’s a criminal case, she opposes asking state and local police to carry out administrative detentions for immigration violations.
“What we are seeing out of the Trump administration is a desire to have local and state law enforcement just do the administrative detentions, not criminal arrest warrants, administrative detentions for immigration violations,” she said. “And that frankly detracts if you have a state trooper off the road doing that, rather than keeping our highway safe, or if you have a police officer out there with the administrative detention order, not investigating crimes, murders, and robberies, that is a distraction that can have really negative impacts.”
Spanberger emphasized that she supports working with federal agencies when it comes to violent offenders or cases involving search and arrest warrants. But, she said, “Asking local and state resources and law enforcement officials to do that administrative detention order that doesn’t keep Virginia community safe, that takes law enforcement here in the commonwealth away from investigating crimes and keeping communities safe.”
Spanberger says as governor, her priority will be keeping Virginia’s communities safe. She emphasizes that when people are afraid to report crimes, everyone is less safe — and that public trust is essential to effective policing.