Trump Administration Requests Delay in Releasing Undocumented Immigrant Accused of Groping High School Girls

The Trump Department of Homeland Security has formally requested that Virginia’s Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger and Fairfax County officials not release an undocumented immigrant charged with sexually assaulting multiple high school girls on school property.

Israel Flores Ortiz, 19, faces nine counts of assault and battery for allegedly groping approximately 12 female students at a Fairfax County high school where he was enrolled as an eleventh-grade student. According to victim statements reported by local media outlet 7News, Ortiz approached the girls from behind in crowded hallways and grabbed them between their legs, with incidents occurring throughout the current academic year.

DHS officials stated that Ortiz entered the United States illegally in 2024 and was subsequently released into the country under the Biden administration’s immigration policies. He is currently being held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center, operated by the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office.

The case highlights growing tensions between federal immigration enforcement and local sanctuary policies. According to the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office website, the facility does not honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) administrative detainers—requests to hold inmates for potential deportation—unless accompanied by a criminal judicial order.

Governor Spanberger has recently rolled back state policies that mandated cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In public statements, she has argued that requiring local law enforcement to perform federal immigration duties undermines community trust and hampers their ability to protect public safety effectively.

“When state and local law enforcement are pulled away from upholding our Virginia laws to do the job of federal agents, it weakens their ability to deepen trust—contributing to a culture of fear and distrust that makes it harder for officers to do their jobs,” Spanberger has stated previously.

In a subsequent executive order, the governor emphasized that Virginia law enforcement should “focus on upholding the rule of law, investigating and stopping criminal conduct, and protecting public safety, not the administrative enforcement of civil status.”

DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis issued a strongly worded statement on Monday criticizing both Fairfax County’s “sanctuary” policies and Governor Spanberger’s approach to immigration enforcement.

“We are calling on Fairfax County sanctuary politicians to NOT release this predator from jail back into our communities to assault more teenage women,” Bis stated. She specifically criticized Spanberger for ending former Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s policy of cooperation with ICE, claiming the governor is “siding with criminal illegal aliens over American citizens.”

Bis further declared that Ortiz “should NOT have been attending a Virginia high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls,” characterizing the case as “yet another example of the Biden Administration’s failed open border policies.”

The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office responded through spokesperson Allyson Conroy, who confirmed that Ortiz remains in custody at the detention center. Conroy emphasized that while it is “still too early in the process to know the outcome of his case, ICE has been notified of Ortiz’s location” and federal agents “are able to execute their detainer by responding to the ADC and taking Ortiz into custody if and when he is ordered released.”

Conroy stressed that the Sheriff’s Office “does not obstruct or prevent ICE from acting on their civil detainers.”

The case has sparked outrage among some parents in the school district. Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, mother of three students in Fairfax County schools, told Fox News that “this entire horrifying situation is the direct consequence of policy with really dysfunctional priorities,” which she characterized as attempting to “shield adult illegal immigrants at the expense of children’s safety, even in their public schools.”

Lundquist-Arora also alleged that school officials waited two weeks to inform parents about the incidents, only doing so after significant parental pressure.

Fairfax County Public Schools declined to comment on specific details, citing federal and state privacy laws, but stated that it “prioritize[s] student and staff safety” and “fully investigate[s] any time someone shares that an incident has occurred at school, or that they do not feel safe at school.”