The principle that people should be treated equally by the justice system is so fundamental to our national identity that the phrase “Equal Justice Under Law” is inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court. But as a recent report from the House Judiciary Committee shows, in some jurisdictions, certain classes of people are allowed to commit crimes without equal punishment, thus creating a two-tiered justice system. And it appears the practice is far more widespread than many realize.
The House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement released a staff report last week on the sanctuary policies of Arlington County, Virginia. The report found that the county has a policy directing police not to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement officials and has released 42 convicted criminals into the public instead of surrendering them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
As bad as those findings were, however, they were not the most shocking part of the report. That came when Arlington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti admitted under oath that her office explicitly takes a defendant’s immigration status into consideration when deciding how to prosecute defendants, with immigrants receiving lighter punishments than citizens to avoid “disproportionate collateral consequences.”
The consequence she wants to avoid is deportation. Immigrants convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” have faced possible deportation for more than a century. In 1996, Congress added domestic violence, stalking, and child neglect as deportation grounds and expanded the rules covering theft, fraud, and obstruction of justice. A DUI conviction can also disqualify a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals from retaining that protection.
For Democrats, this means that two otherwise equally guilty defendants would face “disproportionate collateral consequences” if they were convicted of the same crime. So instead of treating citizens and immigrants equally under the law, Democrats let immigrants off with lesser crimes. Imagine two men charged with driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.15. Democrats would sentence an American citizen to five days in jail, a $2,500 fine, and a one-year license suspension for a first DUI. But a DACA recipient would walk away with a ticket for reckless driving and a $500 fine. How is that fair?
Arlington County is not the only Democratic jurisdiction that allows immigrants to commit crimes without equal punishment. Next door in Fairfax County, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano has the same policy. A since-deleted campaign website once bragged, “Wherever possible, Steve will make charging and plea decisions that limit or avoid immigration consequences.” Since coming to office, Descano has also issued a policy memo directing his prosecutors to “consider immigration consequences when possible and where doing so accords with justice.”
There does not appear to be a nationwide database of jurisdictions that discriminate against American citizens the way Arlington and Fairfax do, but a 2025 Yale Journal on Regulation article found that, of the 15 counties with the largest immigrant populations, seven had policies directing prosecutors to treat immigrants leniently for the express purpose of avoiding negative effects on their immigration status.
It is bad enough that there are 14 million illegal immigrants in the country undermining the rule of law on a daily basis by working off the books, creating fake identities, or outright stealing other people’s identities. Now Democrats are looking the other way when these same immigrants are caught committing other crimes, too.
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During this year’s State of the Union, President Donald Trump asked legislators to stand if they agreed with this statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” The Democrats didn’t stand. And now we know why. Democrats across the country are discriminating against American citizens by inflicting the harshest penalties on them while letting illegal immigrants off with a slap on the wrist.
The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids state and local officials from selectively prosecuting people based on race, religion, or national origin. The Department of Justice should investigate every jurisdiction where the policy is to shield immigrants from the consequences of their crimes while prosecuting American citizens to the fullest extent of the law.