On Monday, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Payne in Richmond (of all places!) granted the Justice Department a preliminary injunction against Virginia’s new law that tried to choke off local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
In other words, they can't prevent Virginia law enforcement from working with ICE.
The statute was designed to force existing 287(g) agreements to be rewritten by September 1 under a laundry list of state-imposed conditions — or else treat those partnerships as void. Payne concluded the United States is likely to win, finding the law substantially impairs existing contracts and collides with intergovernmental immunity. Existing ICE partnerships stay alive.
Jones does not get to rip them up. HA HA HA
A federal court has enjoined a new Virginia law preventing Virginia localities from cooperating with the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts. pic.twitter.com/bpnXCIqBw0
— Brett Shumate (@AAGShumate) August 31, 2026
This is not Jones’s first trip to the woodshed in the same case. The same judge already blocked Virginia’s attempt to criminalize masked federal officers doing immigration work. Jones asked to stay that order. Payne said no. The pattern is becoming a résumé: file the brief, lose the argument, issue a press release about “fighting Trump,” then wait for the next docket entry that says denied.
He has company in the loss column.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned away his bid to revive a Democratic-drawn congressional map. A Virginia Supreme Court panel refused to let him collapse gun-ban challenges into one friendly venue. Before he even took the oath, the Court of Appeals told Attorney General-elect Jones he lacked standing to muscle into a firearms case. If courtroom W’s were the job description, this office would be in receivership.
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And this is the guy who sold himself as Virginia’s top cop after texting about putting “two bullets” in a Republican speaker’s head and after a 116-mph reckless-driving conviction. Now he’s the named defendant watching a federal court tell him he cannot kneecap ICE agreements that already exist. Sanctuary theater meets the Supremacy Clause. The clause won.
Jones can keep building a “Federal Accountability Unit” to sue Washington on a loop. Judges keep building a different record: another injunction, another loss, another reminder that an attorney general who cannot keep his statutes standing is just a politician with a bar card.
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