Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano undercharged yet another violent illegal immigrant this week, ensuring that yet another danger to the community will be released onto an unsuspecting public to harm again. Far from being a one-time mistake, undercharging illegal immigrants is the stated policy of Descano’s office and part of a wider Democratic Party campaign to create sanctuaries for illegal immigration.
Israel Flores Ortiz, an 18-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted this week on nine counts of assault and battery after at least a dozen students at Fairfax High School, some as young as 13, accused him of grabbing them between their legs. “It was not just a butt smack or a butt grab,” one mother told local news. “It was a groping of a private area. It had been occurring for several months.”
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Ortiz should have been charged with sexual battery, which would have forced him to register as a sex offender. That would have alerted local communities to his presence when Democrats inevitably let him out of jail early, and also would have alerted federal authorities to his location so he could be deported. But Descano deliberately charged Ortiz with a lesser crime so he could evade federal immigration authorities, a decision that has become common in Fairfax County and has gotten people killed.
Most recently, Descano’s office ended the probation of and suspended the remaining sentence for Abdul Jalloh, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone who had been arrested more than 30 times by Fairfax police, including for assault, drug possession, firing a weapon, identity theft, larceny, pickpocketing, rape, and trespassing. Descano finally secured a conviction against Jalloh in 2023 after he stabbed a man in a Fairfax County 7-Eleven parking lot while trying to steal his cellphone.
Jalloh served only two years of his seven-year sentence before Democrats released him back into the public, where, of course, he stabbed another person. Instead of putting Jalloh back in prison for violating the conditions of his parole, Descano suspended his remaining sentence and ended his probation. Months later, Jalloh stabbed 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter to death at a Fairfax County bus stop.
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Descano is running cover for killers, and Jalloh and Ortiz are far from the only illegal immigrants to whom he has given preferential treatment.
In December, Descano chose not to prosecute Marvin Morales-Ortez, another illegal immigrant from El Salvador, after he was arrested for brandishing a gun and assaulting and injuring someone. Morales-Ortez had seven prior arrests, ranging from petty larceny to assault to first-degree murder, and Descano had secured one theft conviction, but Morales-Ortez was sentenced to just a fine, which he did not pay. After being released by Descano following the recent assault arrest, Morales-Ortez went on to murder a Reston resident that day.
More recently, Descano struck a deal with two more illegal immigrants, sentencing them to just five years in prison for malicious wounding after they murdered an Oakton man.
Undercharging illegal immigrants, or not charging them at all, is not a random practice in Descano’s office. It is policy. His campaign website, which he has since scrubbed, read, “Wherever possible, Steve will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences.” Descano followed that campaign promise with an official office policy memo directing his prosecutors to “consider immigration consequences when possible and where doing so accords with justice.”
This means that two otherwise identical people arrested for driving while intoxicated, for example, will receive different treatment based on their citizenship status. An American citizen caught driving drunk in Fairfax County will have the book thrown at him, including up to a year in jail, loss of license, and a $2,500 fine. An illegal immigrant guilty of the same crime could get a driving ticket and a $500 fine.
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This two-tiered justice system is carried out in the name of “equity” while working against Americans and sacrificing equality and safety. For Democrats, Descanso, Ortiz, and Jalloh are not violent criminals from whom the public must be protected. They are historically underserved and marginalized minorities who deserve preferential treatment despite the law.
Democrats want illegal immigrants, even criminal illegal immigrants, to know they are safe from President Donald Trump’s deportation policies. That is why Descano’s office has a policy of leniency toward illegal immigrant offenders. This may make Democrats feel better about themselves, allowing them to believe they are protecting a vulnerable community, but they are doing precisely the opposite. Their policy is delivered at the cost of the bodily integrity of the girls at Fairfax High School and the life of Stephanie Minter.
