![\"Virginia](\"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/virginia_rotator_675x450-300x200.jpg\")
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed two key immigration enforcement bills last week.\u00a0 House Bill 481 and Senate Bill 270 would have required state and local law enforcement to hold criminal aliens for ICE pick-up, undermining dangerous sanctuary policies in the Commonwealth of Virginia.<\/p>\n
Using the same veto statement for both bills, Governor McAuliffe argued that not only would they fail to improve public safety, but that they would needlessly stigmatize criminal aliens, who he glosses over as mere \u201cnon-citizens.\u201d\u00a0 His statement reads<\/a>: \u201cRather than stoking irrational fears of non-citizens present in the Commonwealth, the General Assembly should be focused on substantive policies to improve public safety in Virginia.\u00a0 House Bill 481 makes no one safer and inappropriately stigmatizes many of those who are caught up in a broken immigration system.\u201d<\/p>\n Though laughable to those of us who frequently report on the victims of criminal aliens, Governor McAuliffe\u2019s assertion that somehow criminal aliens do not pose a public safety threat in the state was unfortunately not an early April Fool\u2019s Day joke.\u00a0 His statement echoes that of the amnesty lobby, who will do anything to protect criminal aliens, while ignoring the voices of those who have been harmed by illegal aliens.<\/p>\n Try telling the family of Sister Denise Mosier who was killed by Carlos Martinelly Montano<\/a>, an illegal alien who hit a van she was in while drunk driving in Bristow, Va., that criminal aliens are not dangerous.\u00a0 Try consoling the heart-broken mother of 19-year-old Vanessa Pham of Falls Church, Va., who was murdered by Blanco Garcia<\/a> after giving him and his daughter a ride home from a shopping center.\u00a0 Try explaining to future victims that these laws wouldn\u2019t have made a difference\u2026.if it\u2019s not too late.