Fairfax County, Virginia Sheriff Stacey Kincaid’s announcement she would cancel an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to honor “detainers” for illegal alien criminals and arrestees has prompted pro-American immigration reformers to condemn the move for turning Fairfax into a “sanctuary county.”

In the affluent suburban Washington, DC county, criminals and arrestees who ICE believes are illegal aliens subject to deportation will no longer be held for up to 48 after their release date so federal agents can pick them up.

Virginia Republican U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who led an effort to force jails to report illegal alien criminals to ICE and help enforce immigration laws as a supervisor in neighboring Prince William County using ICE’s 287(g) program, issued a statement in response Thursday. “It is official — Fairfax County is now a sanctuary jurisdiction,” he wrote, continuing:

The very first time an illegal alien Fairfax releases to the streets commits a crime, these Fairfax office holders will be guilty of accessory to whatever crime that illegal alien commits — rape, murder, drug trafficking. Fairfax’s disregard for the rule of law is astonishing, and under my watch as U.S. Senator it will not stand. The fact that Sheriff Kincaid had to go into hiding for a few days after this announcement tells you everything you need to know. They’re willingly quitting their job to try to win the votes of illegals.

Dale. L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), a pro-American immigration reform law firm based in nearby Washington, DC, echoed Stewart’s characterization of Kincaid’s decision to stop complying with detainers as a “sanctuary” policy:

Sanctuary policies are popular with some politicians but are not in the best interests of their residents. While 8 U.S.C. 1373 does not require detainer compliance, ICE leadership is considering using anti-harboring laws to hold these local authorities responsible for the harmful and sometimes tragic results that their policies create. Such an action would send a clear message that federal laws cannot be arbitrarily ignored.

Kincaid’s decision is particularly galling to Virginian immigration hawks after then-candidate for Governor Ralph Northam criticized his Republican opponent for bringing up sanctuary jurisdictions in a debate because the state had none. Northam, now Virginia’s governor, later claimed he opposed sanctuary cities and would sign a bill to ban them.

Fairfax County, like much of Northern Virginia, has become a hot spot of illegal-alien fueled gang violence. Stewart is running on a platform that proposes to prevent sanctuary policies like Sheriff Kincaid adopted anywhere in Virginia by mandating 287(g) participation.

“It saddens me that as a young Latino boy growing up in Annandale, Fairfax County how the public parks have changed,” Fredy Burgos, a member of the Virginia Republican State Central Committee for the 11th District, which covers much of Fairfax County, told Breitbart News.

Two parks in the affluent county have been the site of brutal MS-13 gang murders in recent years. Another body, believed to be that of teenage runaway Jholie Moussa, was found Friday in another Fairfax County park. The homicide investigation into Moussa’s death has not, as of yet, found any link to gang violence.

“I used to play in the very same parks, tackle football, play war, explore, and go BB gun hunting with my friends are now there are crimes scenes with the bodies of young Latino boys being dug up,” Burgos recounted to Breitbart News. “These are the results of liberal policies of the last three decades in Fairfax County. Sad.”

Lou Di Leonardo, a Fairfax County resident and local conservative commentator who served as analyst at ICE from 2003 to 2009, express his dismay at his county’s government’s actions to Breitbart News. “The Fairfax County leadership has decided to put the comfort of criminal illegal aliens above the safety of its citizens,” he said, adding:

In March of 2017, the chairman of the county’s board of supervisors and the deputy police chief promised to not enforce immigration law. Yesterday, the county’s sheriff completed the circle by telling her jail personnel to no longer hold freed illegal aliens for ICE Agents.

Democrats and open-borders activists, meanwhile, are enthused by the Fairfax County Sheriff Office’s newfound leniency for illegal aliens criminals. “I am pleased with Sheriff Stacey Kincaid’s decision to take this step,” Sharon Bulova, Fairfax County’s Democratic board of supervisors chairwoman wrote in a press release. “The Sheriff and her Deputies operate the County jail and are not federal immigration officials.”

Reporting on the decision, the Washington Post uncritically quoted Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, director of the George Soros-funded Legal Aid Justice Center’s “Immigrant Advocacy Program,” whose mission is prevent illegal aliens from being deported. He called Kincaid’s decision “a tremendous step in the right direction.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg has fought to protect an MS-13 gang member from deportation and fundraised aggressively on the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA. “It’s pretty clear that to hold someone beyond their release date based solely on an ICE detainer violates law,” he told the Post. “A lot of people don’t believe that having an intergovernmental contract essentially cures that violation of law.”

Sheriff Kincaid’s own office did not reply to Breitbart News’s request for an explanation of the rationale behind the decision to stop honoring detainers.