Arlington County has approved a $50,000 program to help families whose primary wage earner has been detained or deported by federal immigration authorities, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from the local Republican Party.
The County Board voted 4-0, with one member absent, on Sept. 2 to appropriate the funds. The money will go to Arlington Thrive, a nonprofit that will distribute grants of up to $2,000 per family to cover basic needs.
Board Chair Matt de Ferranti defended the program at the special meeting. “We stand with our immigrant families, and we will not stop doing so,” he said. “We are valuing the families of those that have been displaced and removed.”
Matthew Hurtt, chairman of the Arlington County GOP, called the program a “slush fund” and argued it conflicts with federal immigration policy under the Trump administration.
“This flies in the face of the Trump administration policy, and it is a detriment to taxpayers of Arlington – tens of thousands of whom are conservative and Republican and oppose this policy,” Hurtt told Fox News Digital.
Hurtt also noted that because Arlington Thrive is a nonprofit rather than a government agency, it is not subject to the same transparency requirements that apply to public bodies handling taxpayer money.
The funding decision comes shortly after a two-week law enforcement operation in the Washington, D.C., and Virginia region in which more than 1,300 illegal immigrants were arrested.
It also follows a January directive from de Ferranti urging Arlington residents to report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to county authorities, part of a broader pattern Hurtt says has defined the county’s approach to federal immigration enforcement since President Trump’s first term.
“Arlington County, Fairfax County, and other Northern Virginia counties are completely run by far-left activists who love this kind of program,” Hurtt said. “They have, for years, since President Trump’s first administration, sought to be the first line of defense against the orange man.”
“So if something happens in Washington that is supported by Republicans, the county board in Arlington and Fairfax does exactly the opposite,” he added.
Hurtt also pointed to the county’s pattern of asking voters to approve bond measures, funded through additional taxes, for services such as schools and roads.
“Every single election cycle, the Arlington County board puts hundreds of millions of dollars on the ballot in the form of bond issues for basic services — school improvements, road construction, and other projects that they deem necessary,” Hurtt said. “What that tells voters is that they aren’t prioritizing those projects, projects that they bond out and borrow dollar after dollar, but they’re prioritizing these far-left projects like a slush fund for illegal aliens.”
Fox News Digital reported it had reached out to Arlington County Democrats and the County Board for comment.
