DHS Just Revealed How Little Spanberger’s Sanctuary Virginia Made a Predator Pay

Marcelo Vasquez-Reyna served six months in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing his own teenage daughter.

DHS used his deportation to publicly torch Governor Spanberger's sanctuary policies.

DHS says Spanberger's sanctuary state let a predator like this one walk away with far too little punishment.

The Six Months That Set a Child Predator Free

Vasquez-Reyna pleaded guilty in March to sexual abuse involving his own daughter, who was between 15 and 17 years old at the time.

Court records show he was arrested more than once for groping her and trying to forcibly rape her.

A Virginia judge handed him five and a half years, then suspended five of them.

He walked out after six months.

ICE picked him up anyway and sent him back to Mexico.

DHS did not soften the language when announcing it.

The department called him "a depraved freak" and said, "NO SANCTUARY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS."

DHS Calls Out Spanberger's Sanctuary Policy by Name

DHS did not stop at one case.

The department pinned the blame directly on Governor Abigail Spanberger, who killed Virginia's 287(g) agreements on her first day in office.

Those agreements let state troopers, corrections officers, and game wardens check immigration status during an arrest and flag violent offenders for ICE before they ever saw a release date.

Spanberger tore that cooperation up in January, and DHS has been keeping a list ever since.

Fairfax County had one charged with trying to disarm a police officer.

Prince William County had one arrested for molesting a five-year-old girl.

Loudoun County had one charged with attacking a woman in a park.

Louisa County lost a two-year-old girl after a Mexican national was charged with sexually assaulting and killing her, a case DHS says never should have happened.

DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis did not mince words about that one either, calling the suspect "this monster" who "sexually assaulted and murdered a 2-year-old girl."

Bis said the death "was completely avoidable because this illegal alien should have never been in our country," and added that Spanberger's policies have turned Virginia into "a hotbed for illegal alien crime."

A Spanberger spokesperson pushed back, insisting the state still notifies ICE about foreign-born inmates in custody and participates in federal task forces.

The spokesperson added that the governor "strongly believes violent criminals who are in the United States illegally should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and deported."

That statement has not stopped a single one of these cases from happening on her watch.

DHS has made that same public request in case after case, asking Spanberger's administration to simply hold these men until ICE could take custody.

DHS says her administration has not honored a single one of those requests.

The Pattern DHS Says Keeps Repeating Across Virginia

Look at the list DHS keeps publishing, not the press release language surrounding it.

An officer nearly disarmed, a five-year-old molested, a woman attacked in a park, and now a toddler killed, all inside one governor's first year.

That toddler's own mother is the one who brought her into a sheriff's office in neighboring Goochland County.

Deputies there tried to resuscitate the two-year-old before she died.

That is not bad luck.

That is what happens when a state stops asking ICE who it is releasing back onto the street.

This is the same Abigail Spanberger who spent years working as a CIA case officer before she ever ran for office, the kind of résumé Democrats love to point to as proof she is tough enough to keep Virginia safe.

Her first act as governor was ripping up the exact tool that keeps predators like Vasquez-Reyna out of Virginia neighborhoods.

Every family named in these DHS releases is the receipt for that decision, and there is no press statement long enough to explain it away.

Sources:

• Teri Christoph, "DHS Torches 'Sanctuary Spanberger' After ICE Deports 'Depraved Freak' Who Found Refuge in Virginia," RedState, August 17, 2026.
• staff, "Spanberger's ICE Rollback to Blame for Toddler Killing, Virginia 'Hotbed' of Illegal Immigrant Crime: DHS," Fox News, July 22, 2026.
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "ICE Asks Governor Abigail Spanberger to Not Release an Illegal Alien Arrested in Virginia for Molesting a 5-Year-Old Girl," DHS.gov, June 17, 2026.
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "ICE Asks Virginia Sanctuary Politicians to Not Release Illegal Alien Who Tried to Disarm Police Officer in Fairfax County," DHS.gov, July 30, 2026.
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "ICE Asks Governor Abigail Spanberger and Virginia Sanctuary Politicians to Not Release Illegal Alien Who Attacked a Woman in a Park in Loudoun County," DHS.gov, July 27, 2026.