Stop letting lefty DAs shield illegal-immigrant criminals from ICE

In December, Marvin Morales‑Ortez walked out of a Fairfax County, Va., jail a free man.

He shouldn’t have.

Morales‑Ortez was in the country illegally; he was in jail on serious charges, including for a violent assault and a firearm offense.

Those charges were dropped.

He was released.

Within 24 hours, police say, he murdered a man.

This was not bad luck.

It was policy.

Fairfax’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano has openly promised to limit or avoid “immigration consequences” when charging criminals.

In other words, his office will treat illegal immigrants more leniently than US citizens.

Descano’s policy directs his prosecutors to consider “the detrimental impact that deportation/removal has on the families and communities those removed or deported leave behind.”

Dozens of progressive prosecutors have adopted similar policies to thwart federal laws that make noncitizens deportable if convicted of certain crimes.

And bipartisan majorities in Congress recently expanded that list of offenses after an illegal alien murdered Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

By dropping or reducing charges, these prosecutors help keep these criminals off ICE’s radar — if not totally out of their reach.

To do that, these district attorneys give criminal aliens preferential treatment at the expense of American citizens.

And that disparate treatment is not only dangerous, it is unlawful under civil-rights law, which bars discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

Since, in effect, these defendants are receiving special consideration unavailable to US citizens, these policies and practices violate the civil rights of the rest of us.

Descano claims he dropped the charges in the first case because a victim failed to appear.

But his office had dropped multiple cases against Morales-Ortez before, including first-degree murder, felony assault on a police officer and other violent offenses.

Again and again, he received leniency.

Again and again, he was released.

This is what happens when ideology replaces equal justice.

And it is happening nationwide.

Minneapolis DA Mary Moriarty released a policy last April instructing her prosecutors to consider “racial identity and age” in charging and sentencing decisions.

The Justice Department rightly intervened, since such blatant discrimination violates the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution.

But the week before, Moriarty issued an equally insidious and discriminatory policy, ordering her prosecutors to take the “immigration impacts” on the defendant into account.

Some other DAs use softer language.

They invoke “equity,” “collateral consequences” or “compassion.”

But the result is always the same: Illegal aliens receive special treatment; citizens do not.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg instructed prosecutors to seek outcomes that avoid immigration consequences for nearly all misdemeanors and many felonies.

Jail time became something prosecutors had to justify, rather than the default punishment for crime

In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner’s office sends cases involving illegal immigrants to immigration counsel to find ways to reduce or erase those consequences.

If line prosecutors object, Krasner himself steps in to override them.

From Austin to Boulder, these policies are everywhere.

And they all rest on the same idea: that some people deserve more mercy under the law because they are not citizens.

That is discrimination.

Plain and simple.

Never mind the terrible policy consequences; federal civil‑rights law bars government agencies from treating people differently based on national origin.

Yet prosecutors now do exactly that — openly, systematically and without fear of consequences.

The Department of Justice already has the tool to stop this.

Congress decades ago gave it the power to investigate “pattern or practice” civil‑rights violations.

It has been used repeatedly against police departments.

Under the Biden administration alone, DOJ launched a dozen such probes, often ending in sweeping consent decrees that put federal bureaucrats in charge of local policing.

Prosecutors should not be immune from the same scrutiny.

In fact, DOJ has already used this authority to investigate district attorneys.

The precedent exists.

The legal pathway is clear. And the injustice is obvious.

If a prosecutor announced a policy to punish illegal immigrants more harshly than citizens, the outrage would be immediate.

Lawsuits would follow.

Headlines would scream.

But when prosecutors tilt the scales the other way, the silence is deafening.

That silence has a body count.

Morales‑Ortez should never have been free.

It was not an unavoidable tragedy.

It was the foreseeable result of deliberate policy choices.

And that policy — designed to skirt federal law requiring the deportation of criminal aliens — is both illegal and immoral.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

Today, in too many cities, it checks immigration status first.

The Justice Department should open civil-rights investigations into prosecutors who systematically favor illegal aliens over Americans.

Where violations are found, DOJ should seek court‑ordered remedies — just as it has done with police departments.

Equal justice under the law is not optional. It is the foundation of public safety.

And until DOJ enforces it, Americans will keep paying the price.

Jason Johnson is president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which asked the Justice Department to launch a civil-rights investigation into Fairfax’s commonwealth’s attorney’s policies.