ICE has lodged a detainer on a Mexican national in Virginia charged with more than 20 counts of child pornography — and the Department of Homeland Security is publicly demanding that Governor Abigail Spanberger and her sanctuary allies not release him back into the community.
Jorge Gilberto Zamorano-Burciaga was arrested August 12 by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office in Rocky Mount, Virginia, after an investigation. According to DHS, he faces nine counts of possession of child pornography, six counts of producing child pornography with a child under 15, three counts of reproducing or selling child pornography, two counts of possessing obscene material involving minors, and one count of reproducing, transmitting, or selling child pornography. That is a staggering volume of charges tied to the exploitation of children.
DHS says Zamorano-Burciaga illegally entered the United States at an unknown date and location. He then applied for DACA status in February 2013 under the Obama administration, was granted it that August, and received an extension in August 2015. His authorized period expired in October 2018. He has been illegally present for nearly seven years since — years during which, prosecutors allege, he was producing and distributing material depicting the sexual abuse of American children.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn't mince words: "This illegal alien from Mexico has been charged with more than 20 counts related to the possession and distribution of child pornography. ICE is calling on Governor Spanberger and her fellow sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this pedophile from jail, and to cooperate with ICE so we can remove him from our country."
Mullin laid the blame squarely on sanctuary policy: "Governor Spanberger's sanctuary policies have turned the commonwealth into a magnet for illegal aliens, putting American lives at risk."
Baltimore News framed the story around the political standoff between DHS and Virginia's sanctuary apparatus. Breitbart placed it in the context of broader ICE enforcement — and the catalog of recent deportations makes clear why that context matters. ICE has recently removed Naing Nyi Min of Burma, convicted of vehicular homicide in Washington state after being admitted by the Biden administration in September 2022. Also deported: Bernardino Cruz-Cortes of Mexico, convicted of sexual assault of a child in Texas, and Jorge Cabrera Alarcon of Guatemala, convicted of sex assault on a child in Colorado. Miguel Angel Guel Herrera of Mexico was deported after DUI and burglary convictions — he had already been deported once in 2012 and re-entered illegally, a felony.
"The men and women of ICE work around the clock to get illegal aliens out of our communities and make our country safer," Mullin said. "Just last week, we deported killers, pedophiles, drunk drivers, and burglars."
The Zamorano-Burciaga detainer is a test case. Virginia's sanctuary politicians can honor it and hand him to ICE for removal — or they can release him, as sanctuary policy demands, and let a man accused of producing child pornography with children under 15 walk back into the community. There is no middle ground here. The question is whether Spanberger and her allies will side with the enforcement agents trying to remove a predator, or with the policies that kept him in the country long after his legal status evaporated.
