House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is warning that subpoenas could follow if local prosecutors, including a Soros-backed Virginia district attorney accused of softening charges based on a defendant's immigration status, refuse to hand over documents.
Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital that his panel is investigating district attorneys in sanctuary jurisdictions who stand accused of factoring a suspect's immigration status into charging decisions. At the center of the probe sits Steve Descano, the Commonwealth's Attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia, a major suburb of Washington, D.C., who issued internal plea bargaining guidance in 2020 telling his prosecutors to "consider immigration consequences where possible."
The investigation gained urgency after a killing that put Descano's policies under a harsh spotlight: the stabbing death of Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old American citizen, at a Virginia bus stop. Her accused killer, 32-year-old Abdul Jalloh, entered the country illegally from Sierra Leone in 2012 and had been arrested more than 30 times before Minter died, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Jordan described a deliberate escalation process. His committee asks for records, asks again, explains its reasoning, and works with the target's counsel. If cooperation does not come, the committee compels it.
"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. And then if we have to use subpoenas, we certainly will do that... but we want to know the facts."
Jordan did not say Descano's office had refused to cooperate. But his language left little doubt that the committee views the Fairfax County prosecutor's 2020 guidance memo as a serious policy problem, one that extends well beyond Northern Virginia.
He named Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner as officials engaged in what he called "the same darn thing."
"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."
Descano took office in January 2020. That same year, his office issued plea bargaining guidance instructing prosecutors to weigh "the collateral immigration consequences of the specific crime(s) the defendant is charged with." The guidance, first reported by WTOP News, told line prosecutors to "consider immigration consequences where possible" when deciding how to handle cases.
In plain terms, the memo created a framework under which an illegal immigrant charged with a crime could receive a lighter plea offer if a harsher charge might trigger deportation. Jordan called the approach indefensible.
"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?"
Descano's 2019 campaign for the office received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Justice and Public Safety PAC, which lists billionaire George Soros among its backers. Fox News Digital reached out to Descano's office for comment; the article did not include a response.
The case that brought national attention to Descano's office is brutal in its details. Stephanie Minter, 41, was killed at a bus stop in Fairfax County. Abdul Jalloh, 32, stands accused of her stabbing death. DHS reported that Jalloh had been arrested more than 30 times before Minter was killed.
Jalloh entered the United States illegally from Sierra Leone in 2012. The sheer volume of his prior arrests, more than 30, spanning years, raises an unavoidable question: how did a man with that record remain free and present in the country long enough to be accused of taking a life?
Jordan connected the dots between sanctuary policies, the plea guidance memo, and the outcome.
"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."
Jordan added that the concern was one shared broadly.
"That's definitely a concern that I think probably any American with common sense would have."
Jordan emphasized the geographic stakes. Fairfax County is not a remote jurisdiction. It borders the nation's capital. Federal workers, military families, and contractors live there by the tens of thousands. A sanctuary policy in that county means an illegal immigrant with a violent record can cycle through arrests within a short drive of the Capitol, the Pentagon, and every major national-security installation in the region.
Descano and Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Ann Kincaid both testified before Congress in connection with the committee's inquiry, though the precise date of that hearing was not specified.
The committee's investigation also touches on broader patterns. A Department of Justice investigation into Descano's handling of cases involving immigrants has been referenced in reporting, though details of that probe remain limited. Jordan framed the congressional effort as part of a wider reckoning with a network of progressive prosecutors whose policies, he argued, treat immigration enforcement as an obstacle rather than a duty.
Descano is far from the only prosecutor whose campaign benefited from Soros-linked funding and who now faces questions about leniency toward illegal immigrants accused of crimes. Jordan named Bragg and Krasner explicitly, signaling that the Judiciary Committee's investigation could expand beyond Fairfax County. The common thread, as Jordan described it, is a policy architecture that instructs prosecutors to soften charges or plea deals specifically because a conviction might lead to deportation, effectively placing the defendant's immigration status above the safety of the community the prosecutor was elected to protect.
The committee has not yet issued subpoenas. Jordan's public warning, however, puts these offices on notice: produce the records voluntarily, or face compulsory process from a committee with the power to enforce it.
When a prosecutor's own written guidance tells his team to go easier on defendants who happen to be in the country illegally, the policy is no longer about justice, it is about protecting lawbreakers from the consequences that every American citizen would face.
