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Arlington's prosecutor admits swapping DUI charges to save DACA status. Citizens don't get it.

Arlington Prosecutor Testifies Her Office Swaps DACA Recipients’ DUI Charges for a ‘Lateral’ Charge

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 26, 2026 · 5 min read
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Arlington County, Virginia’s top prosecutor has a written policy telling her staff to take a defendant’s DACA status into account in drunk-driving cases, and she told congressional investigators that her office will sometimes swap the DUI for a “lateral” charge so the defendant does not lose that status. The admission is laid out in a House Judiciary Committee interim staff report released September 21, 2026.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, a Democrat who serves Arlington County and the City of Falls Church, gave the testimony in a closed-door deposition on July 16, 2026. The 23-page report, issued by the committee under Chairman Jim Jordan and its immigration subcommittee under Chairman Tom McClintock, is titled “Arlington County, Virginia: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies.”

“DACA is different”

The policy is in writing. According to the report, the office’s internal “Guiding Principles,” dated August 2024, open the DWI section with a sound principle: how prosecutors treat DWI cases “can exacerbate disparities, if we allow decisions to be guided by an individual’s status in the community, like security clearance, job status, etc.”

Then comes the exception. “One exception, however, is an individual’s status as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient,” the policy says. “We handle cases that have varying levels of immigration concerns all the time, but DACA is different, especially in the DUI realm.”

The memo explains that a DUI conviction is a “significant misdemeanor” in the eyes of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that would block a recipient from renewing DACA status. So prosecutors are told: “we must take an individual’s DACA status into account when developing offers to ensure that, while appropriate sanctions and conditions are put in place to protect the public and prevent future similar behavior, an individual is not deported because of their decision to drive while intoxicated.” Prosecutors are also instructed to make sure defense lawyers disclose a client’s DACA status “early on.”

Read that sequence again. The office warns that letting someone’s status in the community shape a DWI case can create unfair disparities, and then carves out one status for special consideration.

The “lateral shift”

Under questioning, Dehghani-Tafti described what those “appropriate steps” look like. The policy, she testified, is “to fashion a resolution that would allow them to not have that status or to allow them to get the status renewed while holding them accountable.” Sometimes, she said, that means revoking bond and some time in jail, “and then we’ll do like a lateral shift to a different charge.”

She said it was “Not dismiss differently than anyone else, not reduce necessarily,” and explained that by lateral she meant that “if something is a first degree misdemeanor, it would still be a first degree misdemeanor on their record.” Asked whether this was specifically about DACA renewal, she answered: “Correct. Yes.” She added: “And we would not allow them to expunge the original charge so that it would be apparent on their record.”

Breitbart News reported that she told investigators the swap had come up three or four times that she could recall, and fewer than 10 times for certain.

Why the charge matters

In Virginia, a first DUI offense is a Class 1 misdemeanor, the most serious misdemeanor class under state law. And under federal DACA guidelines published by USCIS, a conviction for driving under the influence is a disqualifying significant misdemeanor regardless of the sentence imposed.

That is the point of the swap. The defendant may still serve jail time or complete treatment, but the conviction on the record is something other than DUI, and the DACA status survives. In the committee’s words, the policy “ensures that certain foreign nationals are never convicted of DWI in Arlington County, solely due to their status as non-U.S. citizens.” The report also states that immigration-specific considerations, and the different outcomes they can produce, “are not available to American citizens charged with similar crimes.”

An American citizen arrested for drunk driving in Arlington is not supposed to get a softer landing to protect a security clearance or a job. The office’s own memo says those factors should not guide the outcome. Only one group gets that consideration, and it is not citizens.

The bigger sanctuary picture

The DUI policy is one piece of a broader report on Arlington’s sanctuary posture. According to the committee, the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office received 310 ICE detainers from January 2025 through May 2026 and honored only two, both accompanied by a judicial warrant. Forty-two of the people named in those detainers already had criminal convictions. The report also faults the County Board’s “Trust Policy,” amended in May 2025, which bars county police from initiating contact with federal immigration authorities.

Dehghani-Tafti also testified that her office’s written policies do not explicitly forbid considering immigration status for any crime, and that it can be appropriate in some assault, domestic violence, fake ID and other cases, according to the report.

Her response

Dehghani-Tafti has rejected the report. ARLnow reported that she called it “a political sham” and “a piece of political propaganda timed for the midterms,” and demanded that the committee “release the full, unedited transcript of my deposition immediately.” A redacted 122-page transcript was later posted on the committee’s website, according to ARLnow. The Arlington County Board said immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government and that its policies comply with the law.

The prosecutor is entitled to her view of DACA. She is not entitled to run two systems of justice out of one office. Equal treatment under the law means the same offense gets the same charge, whether the person behind the wheel is a citizen or not.

One law for citizens, a lateral charge for DACA recipients: that is not mercy, it is a two-tier justice system with a memo to prove it.

Sources

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