Stephanie Minter is dead. Her mother Cheryl filed a federal civil-rights complaint demanding the Justice Department investigate Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D), whose sanctuary policies allowed her daughter’s killer to walk free despite more than 30 prior arrests.
Three days earlier, Descano quietly removed sanctuary language from his campaign website while his office dropped charges so federal agents could finally take a child-pornography defendant off Fairfax streets. Descano testifies before Congress on May 14.
“Why is Descano getting away with doing what he’s doing?”
That is the question Cheryl Minter put to the Justice Department on Sunday, in a federal civil-rights complaint demanding DOJ investigate Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D). Her daughter Stephanie was 41. She was stabbed to death in February at a bus shelter in Alexandria. The man charged with her murder, Abdul Jalloh, came to the United States illegally in 2012 and had been arrested more than 30 times before the killing.
ICE lodged a detainer on Jalloh in 2020. Sheriff Stacey Kincaid (D) refused it. In 2023, Jalloh stabbed an elderly man and got a seven-year sentence — five years suspended. He kept being released. Stephanie Minter is dead.
The pattern is the policy. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, chaired by Jeff McKay (D), prohibits county police from contacting ICE about violent illegal immigrants. Descano’s office implements that prohibition. Kincaid’s jail enforces it.
He’s lying about the record. Descano told the Washington Times “the idea that we favor one group over another is completely wrong.” Three of the last five homicides in Fairfax County are linked to illegal immigrants. That is not “discretion.” That is a policy with a body count.
He’s quietly scrubbing the evidence. Three days before Cheryl Minter filed her complaint, WJLA caught Descano deleting sanctuary language from his campaign website. The deleted line was unambiguous: “If two people commit the same crime, but only one’s punishment includes deportation, that’s a perversion of justice and not a reflection of the values of Fairfax County.” His spokesperson now claims the page “was being misinterpreted.” His campaign website is what Fairfax voters Google when they want to know what their elected prosecutor stands for. The page is gone. The policy isn’t.
He’s letting the feds clean up his mess. That same week, Descano’s office dropped 12-plus child-pornography charges against Roni Mendez-Escobar — an illegal immigrant a Fairfax judge had released in October and again at his November arraignment, while Sheriff Kincaid ignored ICE detainers both times. Descano dropped the charges so federal agents could finally take Mendez-Escobar into custody. The county prosecutor’s last move on a child-pornography case was to step aside and let the federal government do his job.
He’s still going after ICE. In January, Descano helped launch a group called FAFO whose stated purpose is prosecuting ICE agents. That is not theoretical. That is the active policy of the elected official sworn to keep Fairfax County safe.
Cheryl Minter has been reading the prayers her daughter wrote before she died. “Just asking for help. There’s been so many, and I’m still finding them,” she told the Washington Times. The prosecutor with the authority to keep a 30-time arrestee off the street instead spent his political capital scrubbing his website and helping launch a group to prosecute ICE.
Stephanie Minter is dead. Steve Descano and Stacey Kincaid still hold their offices. Both testify before the House Judiciary subcommittee on May 14. Both face Fairfax voters in November 2027. Mark both dates down.
This is why elections matter. The same out-of-state donor network that bought Steve Descano his office is already moving money into 2026 and 2027.
Donate to the Fairfax County Republican Committee so the campaign that finally retires Descano and Kincaid is funded in Fairfax — not handed to whoever Soros writes the next check for.
Richmond is finishing the new congressional map this summer; the midterms are five months after that. Every dollar raised now is voter contact in October.
Match your donation with a neighbor’s. Forward this to the Fairfax conservative who keeps asking what they can actually do.