Last Saturday, my son and his fiancé were driving in their car and, unfortunately, were hit by a driver who did not speak English, who did not have a driver’s license, and who then lied to police in pretending the other person in the car had been driving. I am so grateful my son and his fiancé were not hurt, but I am upset by the growing sense that we are not safe. Indeed this lack of safety seems to be all around us lately.

More information is coming out about the failures of the Secret Service to protect former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, when he missed being assassinated by mere millimeters. It has now been revealed that the Secret Service did not provide approval for counter-snipers until the day before the event, which meant there was insufficient time for the team to prepare. Moreover, while the shooter had used a drone to scope out the area, the Secret Service had no counter-UAS [unmanned aerial system] present, and they could not explain why they did not.  Compounding these failures is the lack of transparency and failure to provide concrete answers to the questions we all have, leading us to ask, “is former President Trump safe, is President Biden safe, are any of us safe?”

It is not just our leaders who seem to be less safe. Closer to home, last week a man was murdered in Oakton, and it turns out that the three men arrested for his murder are all here illegally.

One of them had been arrested by police on March 17th for severely injuring a person, and he did not appear in court.  He was arrested again on June 28th for malicious wounding.  That someone like this is wandering free in our community is concerning enough, but even worse is the fact that ICE had allegedly issued multiple immigration detainers against him and Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid failed to honor those ICE detainers.

To be clear, Fairfax County, under the leadership of a Democrat Board of Supervisors and a Democrat Sheriff, in 2018 ended cooperation with ICE and no longer honors requests to detain individuals without a judicial warrant. To make matters worse, in 2021, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted the Trust Policy, which prohibits police from notifying ICE when they arrest an illegal immigrant.

Last week’s disturbing event is not an isolated case.Nick Minock from WJLA-TV ABC reported, “The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office told me there have been 725 ‘undocumented individuals’ in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in the last 12 months and they only transferred 3 to ICE. Some of those inmates have committed violent crimes… yet Fairfax County Sheriff Stacey Kincaid refuses to honor ICE immigration detainers and says she requires a judicial warrant.”

This has to stop!  You can write to the Board of Supervisors and tell them their sanctuary policies endanger all of us. You can also write a letter of support to our sole Republican member on the Board of Supervisors, Pat Herrity, who voted against the Trust Policy and is now asking the Board of Supervisors to scrap that policy.  These policies will not change unless we demand it, and eventually, we have to vote these radical Democrats out of office.

Ultimately, it is elections alone that will make us safe again. We need Donald Trump in the White House to close down illegal immigration at the border. We need Hung Cao in the Senate in order to hold our federal law enforcement agencies to a higher standard. We need Jerry Torres (8th District), Mike Clancy (10th District) and Mike Van Meter (11th District) in Congress in order to enact laws that will keep us safer.

We, the members, donors, volunteers, precinct captains, poll watchers and election officers of the Fairfax GOP, are the grassroots army that will help get those candidates elected. 

I am grateful to all of you for the role you play. It is time to turn up the heat!

With election season now upon us, think about what more you can do—put in a little more time, volunteer with Trump Force 47, sign up to be a poll watcher or election officer if you haven’t already, and please, donate.

We cannot do the work without your financial support. We are a volunteer army, to be sure, but we need funds to print sample ballots, to send texts and emails to low-propensity voters, to print yard signs.
So please, donate to support this work and let’s make Fairfax County safe again!

If every Republican votes, we can win this November!

Katie Gorka, Chair
Fairfax GOP