The morning of July 17, the City of Charlottesville announced that it would clear a tent community along the Rivanna River, near Free Bridge on Pantops, on Sept. 1, forcing out the dozens of people who have been living along the public trail, some of them for over a year.

City officials have claimed that it’s in the interest of encampment residents’ safety. The tent community, located along a public trail, is in a flood zone. In recent months, its residents have reported at least two fires, one death and two sexual assaults. In July, multiple people posted videos to social media in which they harassed and ridiculed encampment residents.

During the July 27 City Council meeting, some community members applauded the city’s initiative, saying they feel unsafe using the public trail as long as the encampment is there.

One man has sued the city over it, claiming that the city is selectively enforcing trespassing laws at the encampment. 

But other community members, including encampment residents, say that the city’s decision is politically motivated and that its plan — or lack thereof — has already further harmed the people living there.

Josh Epstein, who has lived in Charlottesville most of his life,  called the city’s plan “ridiculous” and asked officials to “act with some humanity and compassion.”

“We’re not getting heard,” encampment resident Jennifer Grant told city officials during the Aug. 3 City Council meeting. She said that some people have already barricaded themselves in their tents, not knowing where they’ll go on Sept. 1. “We’re not getting answers to our questions.” 

Two weeks before the city plans to carry out the clearing, there is no public detailed plan or indoor shelter space for folks leaving the encampment to go.

On Aug. 3, City Council voted to pay up to $4 million for some outside agencies to help the city come up with one. But as of Aug. 14, no contracts had been signed.

How this unfolds can have a long-lasting impact. Done incorrectly, experts say, the city risks further harming unhoused community members and damaging their willingness to engage with city programs in the future. If the city doesn’t follow best practices leading up to and during the clearing, the city could effectively undermine its own investment of millions of taxpayer dollars in homelessness intervention.

Since City Manager Sam Sanders announced his “homeless intervention strategy” in October 2023, the city has invested more than $15 million of taxpayer money in a variety of projects aimed at solving homelessness in Charlottesville, things that have been sorely needed for years, local service providers have said. Those projects include purchasing property for possible shelters and transitional housing, contributing money to nonprofit permanent supportive housing programs, adding staff to local nonprofit service providers, and creating new positions in City Hall for street outreach.

“There’s no one project that’s finally going to get it,” Vice Mayor Natalie Oschrin said on Aug. 3. “But all of these projects combine to make a system that works, a system that hadn’t been developed or invested in in years past, and we are trying to be fiscally responsible while making up for that lack of investment over the years.”

City’s plan still unclear as deadline approaches

The most fleshed-out component of the city’s plan so far is to turn the building at 2000 Holiday Drive into an emergency low-barrier shelter.

The city bought the 2000 Holiday Drive building in fall 2025 for $6.2 million, intending to turn it into a permanent low-barrier overnight shelter complete with services like case management, counseling and, if possible, a clinic. Over the past year, local services providers who have existing relationships with unhoused community members have worked alongside city officials, architects and engineers to develop a renovation and operating plan for that shelter.

That’s still the intention, said Sanders. But before then, crucial safety modifications will be made to the building so that it can be used as an emergency shelter for at least 12 months, starting as soon as possible. He added that building renovations needed for the permanent shelter could continue while it is being used as an emergency shelter.

Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) will run that emergency shelter. CASS is a nonprofit that has run a handful of shelters, as well as homeless prevention and rehousing programs, in the Phoenix area since 1984. This will be the organization’s first shelter outside of Arizona.

As of Aug. 17, the city had not signed a contract with CASS for its services, which are estimated to cost up to $3 million over the 12-month period. The agency will determine ground rules and policies for the shelter, city officials said during the Aug. 3 Council meeting, and since there’s no contract yet, many of the details that encampment residents want to know about the shelter have not been sorted out.

Flooding presents safety risk, but any transition must be done carefully, expert says

City officials have said that they intend for the emergency shelter to be open by Sept. 1, but they can’t promise that it will be. Even if it’s not, the city will clear the encampment, Sanders told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an interview July 24.

“The floodway has to be cleared,” Sanders said. “It’s just not safe, and the time of year that we’re headed into is when flash flooding actually becomes more of a concern, so we just cannot allow camping to occur there.”

Once the deadline passes, camping will be prohibited and anyone remaining in the area, which is public property, will be arrested, according to new signage nearby.

During recent City Council meetings, multiple community members have accused city officials of using encampment residents’ safety as an excuse to clear the encampment, when the real reason is political pressure from housed community members who say they feel unsafe using the trail because unhoused community members are there.

People experiencing homelessness are often perceived to be dangerous, when that’s not necessarily the case, according to the national experts cited in an October 2023 ABC News report. 

In fact, people experiencing homelessness are more likely to be victims of a crime than members of the general population, according to Violence and Victims, a peer-reviewed journal that covers, among other things, research and policy on interpersonal violence and victimization. It is estimated that 14% to 21% of people experiencing homelessness have been a victim of a violent crime, compared to 2% of the general population. Research has also shown that some groups of homelessness individuals, such as women, are at an even greater risk of experiencing violence.

But the floodplain is concerning, Mary Frances Kenion, Chief Equity Officer of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, told Charlottesville Tomorrow. The NAEH is a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness across the country by using research and data to identify solutions to homelessness. The organization also advocates for improved policies at both the local and federal levels. Kenion has nearly two decades of experience in the field.

“You always have to worry about a floodplain,” she said.

“Part of the issue with folks being unsheltered outdoors is those very real impacts of climate change and weather patterns,” Kenion said, mentioning the severe thunderstorms that have hit the area recently. “I can’t overstate that enough. There are so many other factors that go into why the only path forward is to bring people inside.”

But bringing people inside must be done carefully, she said. Unhoused community members should be treated with dignity and respect, and their personal property must be protected.

“The very best practice when it comes to clearing an encampment is, first step, engaging with the residents of the encampment to understand what their needs are and what their preferences are,” Kenion said. Most people experiencing homelessness are not in that situation by choice, and would much rather be in a home, she said. 

“Folks have the ability to direct their own lives and can tell you exactly what they need, why they can’t get it, and what barriers you can support in helping them remove [those barriers] so that they can get on that path,” Kenion added.

City officials and staff started visiting the encampment and talking to residents about the clearing in late July — after announcing the Sept. 1 date.

City Councilor Jen Fleisher, who has worked in public health for the Blue Ridge Health District, and a few city staff spent hours at the encampment every day for a week, conducting needs assessments of folks living there, Fleisher told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

As of July 31, they had surveyed 38 people, Fleisher said from the dais. 

That’s around half of the 70 or so folks estimated to be at the encampment. There had been more, but some decamped to other locations after hearing about the planned clearing, Shayla Washington, executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless (BRACH), a local nonprofit agency that coordinates efforts between Charlottesville-area homeless service providers, told Charlottesville Tomorrow on July 27.

Not everyone at the encampment wanted to fill out a needs assessment. By the time city officials arrived to conduct them, encampment residents’ trust in the city was already eroding.

Encampment residents worried about increased policing of the area

The Charlottesville Police Department installed two cameras at the site and, after a reported rape on July 27, increased police patrols of the area. 

The cameras were installed because both individuals staying in the encampment and people using it for recreation, expressed concerns about safety in the area, Kyle Ervin, the city’s Public Safety Information Officer, told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Aug. 17. The cameras continuously record video only. They do not record audio and are not outfitted with facial recognition or biometric data-collecting technology. 

“The cameras serve as an additional public safety tool to help document incidents if they occur, support emergency response efforts, assist with post-incident investigations, and enhance situational awareness during the transition,” Ervin added. “Their placement is based on operational and public safety needs and is not intended to monitor any specific individual or group.”

Some encampment residents, however, say the cameras make them feel surveilled rather than safe. 

“They say these cameras are for safety,” encampment resident Joshua Ballou told the Council on Aug. 3. “If they’re for safety, I wonder why there are only two. There are several access points that are not on that camera whatsoever. People can walk onto that trail and mess with people that are not protected by those cameras in any way, shape or form.”

“I’m just getting tired of, every time the city says something to me, it gets proven wrong, or it gets proven that it’s a lie, or they say stuff before they even check if they can do it or not,” Ballou added. 

The cameras do more than record. The evening of Sunday, Aug. 16, Charlottesville Tomorrow was standing near one of the cameras during a visit to the encampment when a female voice was broadcast loudly from the camera tower.

“This site is video monitored and the authorities have been dispatched. Please leave the premises,” it said.

Community members familiar with the system said that it’s unclear what triggers the voice. Sometimes no one is standing near it when it goes off, they said. It startles people during the day and wakes them up at night.

Unhoused community members say they need more information, city says situation is evolving quickly

Grant, the encampment resident who spoke up during the Aug. 3 City Council meeting, accused city officials of not listening to the people they claim to be helping. 

“I have spoke and spoke about the concerns that we all have down there,” Grant said at the meeting. She has spoken about conditions at the encampment, and what residents need, at multiple recent Council meetings, including some before the city decided to clear the encampment. “We’re not saying that we will not give the shelter a try, but we want answers to our questions.” 

The city is expecting people to go to a shelter that isn’t yet operational, which they know nothing about, run by a group of people they don’t know or trust, and who don’t know Charlottesville, Grant said. 

Grant insisted city officials and the outside groups get to know people at the encampment and ask what they need in a shelter, before moving forward with the Sept. 1 clearing. 

“There is no reason why you cannot put us somewhere we are comfortable with,” Grant said.

Displacing people can also lead to more distrust. People living together in encampments can often become surrogate family, or chosen family, Kenion said. 

“There’s safety in numbers. People can look after one another. They can share resources,” she added. “Oftentimes, displacement really severs those bonds. It undermines trust” in whoever is carrying out the displacement. In this case, it’s the city.

That worries local service providers, who themselves have spent years building trust in their day shelter (The Haven) and seasonal shelter (PACEM) services and case management, said Washington. 

In their own planning for the permanent shelter at Holiday Drive, they’ve emphasized the importance of involving unhoused community members in the process in order to create a shelter that would actually work for them and that they would want to go to. 

Throughout the Aug. 3 meeting, Sanders and Assistant City Manager Sam Roman talked about their vision for the emergency shelter. It will be on the first floor of the building, with a men’s side and a women’s side, and the city hopes CASS will work out a way to accommodate couples as well as people with pets. There will be actual beds, no bunk beds or cots, and people will not be packed in like sardines.

Communicating the information to people staying in the encampment had been difficult, Sanders said, because of how quickly the conversation about the shelter was moving and changing. 

“Details are coming together rapidly,” he said. “There is no intention of us trying to hold back and keep people in the dark.”

As of the Aug. 17 City Council meeting, not much had progressed in the way of planning, though Roman said that the city had done a few more needs assessments. 

Grant and another encampment resident, Donnas Chambers, said that in the past couple of weeks, they and others hadn’t had any updates from city staff about shelter progress, and they still don’t have answers to their questions regarding safety at the shelter.

They worry that people who already don’t get along at the encampment, and who can have space from one another outside, will be in close quarters in the shelter. That could create problems, they said. They worry that, in a shelter without individual, locked rooms, women staying there will be vulnerable to sex offenders also staying there. They worry that staff won’t be equipped to deal with folks’ mental health problems.

“Think about what I’m saying, please,” Grant pleaded, close to tears.

The encampment clearing date is just two weeks away, and none of the city’s plans have been finalized and therefore not fully communicated to the people staying at the encampment.

“If there’s opportunity to push that back for some better planning and intentional planning alongside the residents of the encampment, I would 100% recommend it,” Kenion said. 

Not enough shelter space and transitional housing exists today

Making sure that people have a place to go, indoors, is another best practice, Kenion said.

Another crucial component of planning for encampment clearing is making sure everyone cleared from the encampment has a safe place to go, but that’s easier said than done, Kenion said.

“We already know that there is not a single place in the entire United States that has enough emergency shelter, permanent housing or transitional housing,” Kenion said.

Currently, the city has just one overnight emergency shelter, The Salvation Army, and not only does it not have room for everyone at the encampment, not everyone at the encampment would be eligible to stay there. The Salvation Army shelter requires guests to be clean and sober, and people convicted of violent crimes like sex offenses are also unable to stay there, because there are families on site.

The community also needs more transitional housing, Sanders said, calling it “an additional gap in our continuum of care.” The city recently received $7 million from the state to add transitional housing capacity and to increase life skills training services in order to help local individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. It cannot be used for the emergency shelter the city intends to open in the coming weeks. Sanders said during the Council meeting that he hopes to use $4 million of it to create more transitional housing in the city, perhaps on the property the city owns at the corner of Avon Street and Levy Avenue. 

The remaining $3 million of that state money will go to The Salvation Army for its shelter expansion.

But those projects are years away from completion. 

There is also not enough permanent supportive housing for everyone who needs it, Washington told Charlottesville Tomorrow earlier this year. Vista 29, an 80-unit permanent supportive housing community currently under construction, will help when it comes online late this year, but it still might not be enough.

If adequate shelter for encampment residents doesn’t exist, Kenion suggests using hotels as a temporary, non-congregate housing pathway. Offering temporary accommodations via hotel can serve as a bridge to getting people into permanent housing or transitional housing, if they choose.

“That’s really the safest and most effective strategy to use after the residents of the encampment have been engaged,” Kenion said. 

Encampment residents, however, have repeatedly said the city, which is leading the effort, is not engaging them like city officials’ reports claim. Roman told the Council that the city has safety crews that warn people at the encampment of impending bad weather.

That didn’t sit well with Chambers.

“They said there’s been services coming down there, checking on us, making sure we’re good, letting us know the weather, stuff like that,” Chambers said during the Aug. 17 Council meeting. “Unless I’m blind, or these people are invisible, we haven’t seen nobody down there.”

City planning to spend up to $4 million on out-of-state agencies to add capacity

As city officials have publicly discussed options over the past few weeks, multiple community members have suggested that instead of paying outside groups to run an emergency shelter, the city could use that $4 million to house people.

“The salary that you guys will pay these people to come in and work at this shelter, and they don’t know anything about the residents of Charlottesville, they don’t know anything about Charlottesville period, that is absolutely incredible, when it could go to housing,” encampment resident Grant told the Council.

“Moving encampments or clearing them is very expensive,” Kenion said, citing a variety of studies, including one from the Urban Institute about how homeless encampment sweeps drain local budgets. “Those are resources that could be better used to simply rehouse them or invest in systems that may not currently have capacity to be able to support them.”

Hiring external agencies was necessary, City Manager Sanders told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Aug. 12.

“The needed capacity did not exist locally for the emergency shelter operation desired by the City,” Sanders wrote. 

With the self-imposed Sept. 1 deadline approaching quickly, the city is currently focused on getting a contract in place with CASS for the emergency shelter, Sanders said. The city also hopes to work with an organization that can provide direct-to-housing services and has reserved $1 million of that $4 million for that purpose. So far, the city has been in touch with Clutch Consulting and Community Solutions, two additional outside groups.

Clutch is a Texas-based national consulting firm that in 2013 helped overhaul Houston’s homelessness response system, resulting in a 60% drop in homelessness. Community Solutions is a national nonprofit organization that works to visibly reduce homelessness by preventing people from losing their housing in the first place and quickly moving people experiencing homelessness into housing. 

Consultants can play a role in solutions, said Kenion, who has worked as a consultant. But they’re often hindered by the resources available in the communities they come into. 

“If you’re bringing in a consultant that is going to be focusing on reducing homelessness in your community, you also have to scale up the resources that are available to maximize that investment so that the community can see the return on investment,” she said. 

Local nonprofit homeless service providers like The Haven, People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry (PACEM) and the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless have programs that place clients in housing, and they say that it’s challenging based on the lack of housing that meets the variety of needs people exiting homelessness often have. 

In addition to broken trust, the city should be concerned about the personal property loss — especially regarding identification — encampment residents often experience during a forced clearing.

“That can be so devastating, and can set people back by years,” Kenion said. Losing one form of ID often sets off a cascade of issues. For instance, if someone loses their social security card while being displaced, they have to get a new one. But, an individual is limited to 10 replacement social security cards in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. 

People experiencing homelessness who are displaced over and over could potentially max out on replacement social security cards. Without that form of identification, other forms, like birth certificates and ID cards, are difficult to obtain. No one can get an apartment, a job, or benefits without one.

Clearing an encampment “doesn’t solve what folks are trying to solve for,” Kenion said. Moving unhoused community members to another location might make them less visible, but they’re still homeless. “That is the core issue.” 

Chambers told city officials something similar. 

“Y’all can allocate funds to this building, but y’all forgetting the main thing. The main thing is the people,” Chambers said. “What’s the purpose of this building that nobody’s going to be in if you don’t work with the people, asking what’s their problem, why are you out there, why are you homeless? Let’s start there and then move to the building.” 

“If you don’t fix the problem,” he added, “you gonna have people going to these buildings and back out to the streets again.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 20, 2026, to correct the spelling of Donnas Chambers’ name.

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Charlottesville Tomorrow is proud to announce that our public health and safety reporter, Anastasiia Carrier, has been selected as a 2026-2027 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. 

“That a Charlottesville Tomorrow reporter has been selected to this prestigious program speaks volumes to the caliber of journalists at our local nonprofit newsroom, and especially to Carrier’s exceptional reporting,” said Claudine Ebeid, executive producer of audio at The Atlantic and current member of our board of directors.

The Knight-Wallace Fellowship is a competitive, nine-month program for professional journalists run by the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan. Starting in late August, Carrier will join 18 other fellows from across the world to work and study in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The fellows each work on an in-depth journalistic project and attend university classes.

“Charlottesville Tomorrow has been incredibly supportive about professional growth opportunities, and the project that I’m pursuing as part of the fellowship came out of my reporting at Charlottesville Tomorrow as a way to go deeper,” said Carrier. “It’s rare to have support like that.”

In May 2024, Anastasiia Carrier — known to many as Ana — joined Charlottesville Tomorrow as our public health and safety reporter. 

For our public safety beat, she tracked the evolution of Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Oversight Board (PCOB) through a series of articles, one of which was featured in the Poynter Institute’s 2025 Transforming Local Crime Reporting program training as an example of excellent public safety journalism. Carrier’s reporting explored the limitations of the PCOB’s influence and varied perceptions of its impact. She touched on the Board’s achievements and setbacks, reviewing its years-long struggle to achieve its original vision, and most recently, its intention to drop its investigative powers and transition to new leadership. 

Carrier has covered the impact of gun violence in Charlottesville. In one report, she investigated the decrease in violence in the Prospect Avenue neighborhood. Despite holding contrasting opinions on how to address violence, two people wrote in to the newsroom to praise Carrier’s balanced reporting. One said, “This is a very good article. You really captured the totality of the different perspectives.” The other said, “It is an honest article highlighting the misperceptions in the community…and the need to come together better.”

In another report, Carrier examined the challenges of navigating Virginia’s re-entry system for formerly incarcerated people. The report helped inform local and state policy conversations. Organizations from across Virginia that work with formerly incarcerated people shared the report with their networks, and it even reached Virginia’s Office of the State Inspector General. Their press officer called Carrier’s report “illuminating.”

Carrier also reports extensively on public health. She has covered access to mental health care, with a focus on youth and their parents, as well as women’s health. She has written several reports about the closure of the labor and delivery unit and its obstetrics and gynecological services at Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville. Her reporting drew national recognition. The Pulitzer Center selected Carrier as its 2026 Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellow to further investigate the closure’s impact on maternal wellbeing.

“We know that Ana’s reporting on gun violence, the justice system and public health in central Virginia has been important to many people,” said CEO and Editor-in-Chief Angilee Shah. “We’re so glad that she can bring the editorial values of our newsroom to our broader industry through this fellowship.”

For her fellowship, Carrier will further immerse herself in the world of health reporting. Specifically, she will be researching and reporting on the gaps in oversight for medical malpractice and misconduct across the nation. Read more about her project.

“I’m saddened to be stepping away from Charlottesville Tomorrow and its team and the community and sources I’ve been working with. There are so many people in the community I speak with regularly to ensure stories that are important to them are told,” said Carrier. “Even so, this is an incredible opportunity and I’m honored and still in a little bit of disbelief. I’m excited about what this means for me as a reporter: a chance to focus on learning about healthcare on the structural level away from the day-to-day, story-to-story pace.

Follow Carrier on LinkedIn for updates throughout her fellowship. 

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After a last-minute addition to an Orange Town Council meeting agenda 16 years ago, councilors voted to shorten the term of mayor to just one year, which is exceedingly rare in Virginia.

Now the Town Council is deciding whether to reverse that decision. 

On Monday, August 17, residents of the Town of Orange will have the opportunity to weigh in on whether the term lengths of mayor and vice mayor should be changed to two years, which was their duration prior to 2010. 

Orange Mayor Harrison Cluff put discussion of the term on the agenda for the Orange Town Council work session that took place Monday, Aug. 3. During the work session, Cluff clarified that he is not proposing for his current term as mayor, or that of current Vice Mayor Jeffrey Crane, to be lengthened, and that any changes passed by Council would only take effect for future terms.

“Let me say up front, this would have absolutely no bearing on the current term,” Cluff said. “The term for the mayor and the vice mayor right now runs through the end of this year, and there will be another vote held next year for that term. At that time would be when I would propose that we go back to where we were for many years, and that was as two-year terms for mayor and vice mayor.”

Cluff added that a two-year term could potentially give the incoming mayor more time to adjust to the position, since Council is usually busy working on the budget during the first half of each year. The change would also allow the selection of the mayor to align with Town Council elections, which take place every two years, as Council members serve staggered four-year terms.

The Town of Orange, like most places in Virginia with the exception of the City of Richmond, operates on a “weak mayor” system, meaning that the mayor mostly fills a ceremonial role and wields little power beyond that held by all Town Council members. The mayor is the member of Town Council who presides over meetings, and as a member of Council, gets to vote on community matters like the budget and changes to town ordinances, but does not have veto power or executive authority.

Like most “weak mayor” municipalities, Orange also operates under a “council-manager” system. This means that the town manager (in Orange, Chris Snider), who is not elected, holds most of the authority over the town’s day-to-day administration. 

In many municipalities including Orange and Charlottesville, a “weak” mayor is selected from within the town council rather than directly elected by the public, although towns with a council-manager/weak mayor system often publicly elect their mayor, as is the case in nearby Gordonsville.

(If you find any of that interesting — or confusing — Charlottesville Tomorrow has an excellent article from 2022 that explains these systems of local government and their alternatives in more detail.)

While Orange’s form of governance isn’t unusual, the length of its mayoral and vice-mayoral term is. In fact, several hours of research into Virginia town charters and city data didn’t yield any examples of another locality in Virginia that chooses its mayor for a one-year term. 

While the one-year term is rare, it is legal, as Virginia law grants localities substantial flexibility under their own municipal charters to determine the term their mayors should serve, and even more flexibility to localities like Orange that internally select a mayor from within town council. In practice, nearly all mayors in Virginia serve two- or four-year terms to align with council elections, but a few localities, like the city of Alexandria, serve three-year terms. 

So, how did Orange’s mayoral term get so short? Reports from 2010, when the term length was changed from two years to one year, suggest that that decision had more to do with a personal grievance at the time than it did with effective governance.

According to a report by Gracie Hart in the Orange County Review (subscription required), Councilmember Kent Higginbotham added a vote on shortening the mayoral term as a last-minute item on the agenda at an Orange Town Council meeting in May 2010. The mayor, the late Henry Lee Carter, dissented, saying that a decision as significant as the term of mayor deserved more thought. 

“I hate when these things come up unannounced,” Carter said. “There may be consequences. [This is] a shoot-from-the-hip motion.”

The decision followed several months of Town Council proceedings described by the Orange County Review as “tumultuous,” including a closed-door meeting possibly called in an attempt to remove Carter from his role as mayor in late August 2009, and a proposal by Higginbotham in October to limit the circumstances under which the mayor could vote and participate in discussion.

The reasons for the reported attempts to limit Carter’s power are not well known, as Higginbotham and the majority of Town Council declined to comment at the time, according to the Orange County Review. Ultimately, Council voted 4-1 in favor of Higginbotham’s proposal to shorten the term of mayor to one year.

Charlottesville Tomorrow reached out to several people, including former Town Council members, to try to gain more insight. While accounts varied slightly, one consistent theme stood out: no one can remember exactly why they made the change in the first place. 

That includes Higginbotham, the Town Council member who put the item on the agenda. During a phone call with Charlottesville Tomorrow on Tuesday, Higginbotham said that he couldn’t recall specifics but that he and the former mayor were “politically opposite.”

“Obviously, it had to be we had disagreements of what direction we were going,” Higginbotham said.

Similar to Higginbotham, Carter’s son, Jack Rickett, mentioned general ideological differences as opposed to differing opinions on a single issue. 

“I hate to say it, but as I recollect, I would have to agree with Kent from a standpoint of, they had two opposite ends of the spectrum — political views — on how government should run and what is the purpose of government,” Rickett said. “There was intense debate and a little bit of a struggle that went back and forth in multiple elections to where a majority would lie.”

Nancy Alexander, a former Town Council member who voted in favor of shortening the mayor’s term to one year back in 2010, mostly remembered that she had hoped the change would help to “overcome the lack of unification” at the time. Looking back, she doesn’t believe shortening the term had that effect, Alexander told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

“Ultimately? No, I don’t think there was any change. And I don’t think that’s indicative of Orange. I just think it’s small towns,” she said.

This time around, whether Orange Town Council decides to change the mayoral term back to two years or keep it at one year, the process will include one crucial component that was lacking during the surprise vote in 2010: a chance for the public to give their input during the Aug. 17 Town Council meeting.

During a phone call with Charlottesville Tomorrow, Councilmember Donna Waugh-Robinson said she’s “open-minded either way,” seeing pros and cons to a one- or two-year mayoral term, and won’t make a final decision until she hears what residents have to say. 

“I want the public to come out and speak up and let us know what they want, because we represent them. You know, we’re five votes, but we represent the town, all the people of the town, and I want to hear from them,” Robinson said. 

“You have to put aside your personal opinion and you have to do what your constituents want.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 16, 2026, to correct Delmer Seal’s title as Councilman.

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The Charlottesville Food Co-Op will not run a grocery store proposed for a Cherry Avenue development after all.

The group, which formed specifically for the opportunity to run a grocery store at the 501 Cherry Ave. development in Fifeville, announced the news in a media release the afternoon of July 20.

The Co-Op acknowledged that the news was likely disappointing for Fifeville residents, who have repeatedly asked for a grocery store, something the historically Black neighborhood hasn’t had for years. Access to fresh, healthy, affordable food is so important to them that they named it as a priority in an official city planning document. 

“We sincerely apologize for the frustration and uncertainty this process may have caused,” the Co-Op wrote, explaining that it was unable to clear significant hurdles — including financing and site design — in its path toward opening a community-based, community-owned affordable grocery store at the site. 

That doesn’t necessarily mean Fifeville won’t get its grocery store. The Co-Op is still hoping to find a home in the neighborhood, or at least nearby. 

And the 501 Cherry project partners — the Fifeville Neighborhood Association (FNA), which is made up of neighborhood volunteers, and developers Piedmont Housing Alliance (PHA) and Woodard Properties — said in their own media release that same day that they are still committed to finding a grocery store operator for the space. It’s something all three parties agreed to when they signed a contract called a “community benefits agreement” in 2023. 

But the Co-Op’s news is yet another setback for the mixed-use project, which has faced numerous challenges for both the housing component and the grocery store since it was first proposed in March 2023. Despite the news, the project partners say they’re still on track to break ground this fall and anticipate construction to be finished in spring 2028. 

The Co-Op had been working on their plan for the store for about a year before withdrawing from the project.

In February 2025, the FNA officially recommended that the newly formed Charlottesville Food Co-Op operate the grocery store. The neighborhood association selected the all-local group from a list of four possible contenders, saying that the Co-Op, composed mostly of women of color, was the only one that could deliver everything Fifeville residents said they wanted in a grocery: fresh, healthy food they could afford, from a store with deep community roots.

The Co-Op was off to the races. In just a few months, the group developed a business plan with financial projections and started working on fundraising and selling memberships. Woodard Properties and PHA had those documents reviewed by grocery industry experts, who said everything looked good. In May of 2025, Woodard Property and PHA affirmed the FNA’s recommendation that the Co-Op run the grocery store at 501 Cherry Ave.

Consultants, architects and project partners’ opinions differed on the site’s suitability for a grocery store

Then, in May of this year, the Co-Op received disappointing news. It had commissioned a site analysis from the Seven Roots Group, a national consulting firm specializing in grocery store design, strategy and feasibility, and Seven Roots determined that the space at 501 Cherry Ave. “is not feasible for a successful grocery store option,” a May 4 press release from the Co-Op said.

Seven Roots’ determination, the Co-Op said, was mostly due to problems with the site design. The consultants did not reply to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s follow-up questions.

The consultants determined that large delivery trucks would struggle with the steep site exit and wouldn’t be able to make the site’s tight turns, the Co-Op said. Lack of a dedicated trash area for the store, rather than one shared with other parts of the development, was another issue.

Not everyone thought so. Anthony Woodard, CEO of Woodard Properties, disagreed with the consultants, according to a Cville Right Now report from May 5. The company’s architects and engineers planned for a grocery store from the beginning, considering that use in their site design, Woodard said. 

What’s more, he added, the consultants made the determination by assuming that 85-foot tractor trailer trucks would be making routine deliveries. That wouldn’t be the case.

“Most local businesses in Charlottesville are supplied by tractor-trailers in the 40- to 50-foot range — the same trucks that back down side streets to supply restaurants and shops on the Downtown Mall,” Woodard said. “A neighborhood store of this size is typically served by box trucks up to 45 feet, which the site is designed to accommodate.” 

“Some members have been encouraged by Woodard Properties’ and Piedmont Housing Alliance’s willingness to reengage around their design plan, and members are hopeful that their persistence and creativity will help ensure that the grocery store remains an option,” the Co-Op said at the time.

The same week, Woodard Properties, BRW Architects, Shimp Engineering, PHA, the FNA, the Co-Op and Seven Roots met to talk through possible changes to the design plan that would alleviate the consultants’ concerns, according to the May 5 Cville Right Now report.

People have different recollections of that meeting. 

Woodard told Cville Right Now that during the meeting, folks agreed that “the site is feasible for a neighborhood-scale market, as has always been intended.”

Sunshine Mathon, Executive Director of PHA, told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Aug. 6 that the groups discussed options like modifying Cherry Avenue itself, in front of the development, to create a pull-off delivery lane. That option needed to be approved by the city, and city staff were open to exploring that idea, quickly.

Deanna McDonald, a co-director of the Co-Op steering committee, remembers the developers saying they were unable to alter the footprint of the building to accommodate changes necessary to make the grocery store work there, though she believes it was more that they were unwilling to. Some of the workarounds discussed would have “significant financial impacts to be shouldered solely by the operator, which supported the lack of financial feasibility at the site,” she told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email on Aug. 6.

There were constraints on what the developers could do with the development’s footprint at that point, Mathon said.

“Every use on the site — the affordable housing, Music Resource Center, and the grocery store space — each had to make compromises” on its design to meet the physical challenges of the “small, topologically difficult” site, Mathon said. The compromises were necessary due to the city’s requirements for storm water management and fire truck access. Some were also made at the neighborhood’s request, as residents asked the developers to reduce the height of both buildings on the site and move them further away from the single-family homes at the back of the site. 

“All of these had to be made before a grocery operator was identified,” Mathon added, “and long before the Co-Op concept emerged, so that we could apply for funding for the affordable housing — which takes years to pull together.” And once that funding is in place, the funders restrict the developers from making substantial changes to the buildings’ footprints.

He’d hoped that the rent offered to the Co-Op for the space, which he described as “well below market-rate,” would help counterbalance any inefficiencies of the site. 

In any case, it appears that the groups did not reach an agreement during that meeting in early May.

Co-Op decided not to move ahead, citing site challenges, lack of funding

Just two and a half months later, the Co-Op steering committee voted to not move forward as the grocery store operator at 501 Cherry Ave. The group again cited Seven Roots’ advice as a reason, pointing to site design and a lack of funding. 

“Like many start-ups, we have faced challenges securing sufficient financing, building the necessary operational capacity, and navigating this particular project’s development constraints,” the group wrote in its July 20 press release.

“The Co-Op’s decision does not reflect a lack of commitment to the neighborhood,” it continued. “Rather, it reflects the organization’s mission to make evidence-based decisions that protect the long-term sustainability of a community-owned grocery store and ensure responsible stewardship of public and community investment.”

One of the main problems was that the unique needs of a grocery store weren’t part of the initial design and planning phase, despite a grocery store being one of the main components of the project from the start, the Co-Op’s release stated. Expert input came into play once the Co-Op was selected as the grocery operator and hired its own grocery store design and feasibility consultant.

“The Co-Op wanted to go there,” McDonald, who is also a nurse and led the community engagement process for the FNA, told Charlottesville Tomorrow in an interview on July 21.

“But wanting to go there and being an engineer to see if you can go there are two different things,” McDonald said. “That responsibility was on the developer.” She also believes that the city should subsidize healthy food access to the extent that it subsidizes affordable housing.

The City of Charlottesville has stepped in to fill funding gaps a few times, committing around $4 million in cash to the project overall, with most of it going to the housing component. Additionally, the city agreed to a tax increment financing performance agreement, which allows certain projects to pay a lower tax rate for a certain period of time in order for the project to work out financially.

In their own release, sent a few hours after the Co-Op’s on July 20, the 501 Cherry project partners refuted the claim that a grocery store wasn’t planned for from the beginning.

“From the outset, PHA, Woodard Properties and the Fifeville Neighborhood Association have worked to create a space that is both practical and sustainable for a neighborhood-scale grocery market in a mixed-use development, while balancing the other community-focused uses on the site,” the project partners wrote in their release.

“While we are disappointed that we were unable to reach a path forward with the Charlottesville Food Co-Op, we respect their process and their commitment,” the groups wrote. “The Co-Op poured tremendous heart and expertise into this evaluation, and we are genuinely rooting for their success in finding the right home for a community-owned grocery store.”

And, as the project partners wrote in their release, they still believe that space can work for the grocery store they envision.

Operating smaller grocery stores comes with unique financial challenges

The feasibility of a grocery store in that space has been questioned since the idea was proposed, long before the Co-Op formed. 

Grocery store profit margins are paper-thin, averaging 1% to 3% across the industry, according to the National Grocers Association, an organization that represents and advocates for independent grocery stores and suppliers across the country. 

Most grocery stores make money on such thin margins by selling a lot of product, according to Marketplace.org, a division of Minnesota Public Radio focused on business and economics. Smaller stores that can’t buy or sell large quantities might struggle or raise prices in order to stay in business.

Early on in the process, in March 2023, City Councilor Michael Payne said that he was very much in support of the grocery store, but was concerned that Woodard hadn’t yet locked in an operator.

“We should keep in mind that there are no guarantees of a grocery store there, and the economics of making a grocery store work are extremely difficult. It’s probably likely that in order to make the economics work, you’re going to get a much smaller, boutique grocery store,” Payne said during a Planning Commission and City Council work session in March 2023. And that kind of store could be unaffordable to many of the residents in the historically lower-income neighborhood.

A year and a half later, in September 2024, when the project still did not have a grocery store operator, Mathon said during a community meeting that the grocery store component of the project needed some sort of subsidy in order to work. Otherwise, it would be “dead in the water.” 

“My hope is that we are able to give the community what they ask for,” Carmelita Wood, president of the FNA, said during that same meeting. “My fear is that we will fail.”

Most of the grocery operators that the neighborhood association had reached out to at that point weren’t interested. Some said the space was too small to run a profitable grocery, that the math wouldn’t work. Others, like the owners of Reid Super Save Mart, a neighborhood grocery located on Preston Avenue, said they were not in the financial position to open another store. Reid Super Save Mart closed soon after, in early 2025.

Project partners look for new grocery store partner as Co-Op looks for a new location

Despite the uphill battle presented to them, the Co-Op, inspired by the neighborhood’s needs and desires, still wanted to try. 

“It makes a difference for somebody to be able to go to the grocery store and get a pound of fresh green beans versus two cans of green beans that have hundreds of milligrams of sodium in them to preserve them to get them to the table,” McDonald said. High sodium intake is tied to a variety of health conditions, including high blood pressure, also called hypertension.

“When we start talking about the hypertension, the diabetes, the cancers,” all things that disproportionately affect Black Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “those are the things, those are the people I show up for,” McDonald said.

She was devastated to tell the neighborhood, where her family goes back generations, that the Co-Op wouldn’t be moving forward at 501 Cherry Ave. She also worries about the dozens of households with low incomes that will move into the affordable housing component of the development potentially without access to affordable, healthy food. But the Co-Op is determined to find another location in one of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods.

“This is not the end,” McDonald said.

The project partners said the same.

The grocery store was one of the key components of the deal (officially known as a “proffer”) that Woodard Properties and PHA made with the City of Charlottesville in exchange for the zoning changes and special use permit necessary to build the development. So, they’re moving forward with that.

“We are encouraged by ongoing conversations with other grocery operators who have concluded that the site is, in fact, a viable opportunity,” the project partners wrote in their statement. They did not say who those operators were, and Woodard Properties declined to comment further on the release.

PHA was ultimately able to help subsidize the grocery store component, Mathon said, which is how the project partners could offer the Co-Op well below market-rate rent for the space. That same deal will be offered to whatever operator the neighborhood selects in the future. 

The neighborhood association will once again get residents’ opinions on whether or not one of those operators could provide the type of store the neighborhood wants, one with fresh, healthy food they can afford.

There is a possibility that a grocery store won’t work out in that space at all, the 501 Cherry project partners acknowledged in their statement. If it doesn’t, the space would be used for something else of the neighborhood’s choice.

“We are disappointed that the 501 Cherry site will not work for the Food Co-Op,” FNA President Wood wrote to Charlottesville Tomorrow in an email. A longtime Fifeville resident, she has fond memories of Estes IGA and was the driving force behind the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan that identified a grocery store as a priority for the neighborhood years ago. Wood is still determined to work on “providing a healthy, affordable food source” for Fifeville, and, as a member of the Co-Op steering committee, hopes the Co-Op will find a place of its own as well.

“We knew we had our work cut out for us trying to provide for and fill the void of a much-needed neighbor grocery,” she said.

It is a herculean task, said Eboni Bugg, Director of Community Investment for the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. The CACF is a local nonprofit that facilitates grants and other programs between philanthropists and organizations doing community-based work throughout central Virginia. The CACF funded the community engagement activity around the project, and had been working with the Co-Op on building up its funding.

Construction timelines rarely align with the timelines of movement building and grassroots efforts like the Co-Op, Bugg said. The Co-Op didn’t form until an opportunity for a grocery at 501 Cherry Ave. was there, and then it had to adhere to an “extremely compressed” timeline because of a compressed construction timeline. 

“This is not a failure of any of the parties,” Bugg added. “I hope the community can stay focused on the plan. This is a hard and necessary inflection point, but there is still so much opportunity to make good on the community’s expressed desires and needs.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated on Aug. 11, 2026, to clarify the description of the tax increment financing performance agreement related to the 501 Cherry Ave. development.

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When you search online for news or information about central Virginia, chances are good you’ll get an AI-generated response that uses Charlottesville Tomorrow’s original reporting. Sometimes, our reporting is the only source of information for the AI response.

We are a technology-loving newsroom, and we are always testing and using new tools to better serve our community. We recognize that AI can help us streamline our work, analyze structured data and create products that make it easier for you to get local news.

AI, however, does not spend years building trust with our most vulnerable neighbors to ensure their experiences inform our local decision-making. AI does not stand in the rain or inhale chemical irritants to witness law enforcement activities; it does not spend hours in community meetings to understand not only what is said, but who is in the room and how they feel. AI does not ask tough questions to political candidates, it does not invest in safety training, it does not fact-check or make corrections when it is wrong. AI certainly does not take out the trash in the newsroom.

There is one more crucial thing that AI does not do: for the most part, it does not pay for the work on which its trillions of dollars of capital investment is made. We rely on you, our community, to help us continue to report on the issues you care about. You make sure our reporters can put in the work every day and increase the quality of our knowledge as a community. You ensure the people who make the “data” that feeds AI — often local news reporters — can continue, even if AI companies do not seek permission or compensate them for their work.

And yet, AI depends on us, the people creating the original material that make this technology possible and the donors and foundations that fund the work. It depends on our land, water and air. It’s in our public spaces, our systems and our infrastructure. And we are growing our coverage of how all of this impacts us here in central Virginia, from AI-powered license plate readers to the growth of data centers.

What we have at Charlottesville Tomorrow is stronger than algorithms and bots. As Charlottesville Tomorrow develops policies to ensure all the progress we’ve made to strengthen our information ecosystem isn’t lost in a sea of AI slop, our direct relationship with you, our readers, is more important than ever.

Today, we’ve added a new section to our editorial independence policy to make it clear to you, our community, how we will and will not use artificial intelligence in our work. Like you, our software and devices now have these features built in, but we are being intentional in the newsroom about the opportunities and challenges these tools present. Our main message: this news is produced by real people and we will be transparent with you when AI tools help us do things like analyze data, build tools or create data visualizations.

The post Here’s how Charlottesville Tomorrow uses — and does not use — AI appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Albemarle County Public Schools was hit with another resignation on Aug. 4, as a School Board member announced her plans to step down just before the Board voted on moving ahead with  an independent investigation into the school district. 

Crammed into a small meeting room, the Albemarle County School Board was surrounded by members of the community and media, and were about to start their special meeting session, when one of its members made an unexpected announcement. 

“I’m announcing that I’ve made the difficult decision to step down from the county School Board,” Allison Spillman, at-large representative and current vice chair, said to the room. “My final meeting will be next Thursday, August 15.” 

Fighting tears, Spillman continued to read from a prepared statement, as Board Chair Rebecca Berlin moved in closer to comfort her.   

“This is not a sudden decision, nor is it a reaction to the very few people who have recently demanded the resignation of this Board,” Spillman said. “I’ve been considering this transition for months and had originally intended to step down at the end of the last school year, but recent events made that difficult.” 

The recent events that Spillman was referring to were the arrests of two ACPS staffers for sexual crimes involving children. In the wake of the arrests, the School Board asked former Superintendent Matthew Haas to resign. Soon after Haas’ resignation, Joseph McCauley, the former principal of Hollymead Elementary, was placed on leave and ultimately resigned. McCauley’s resignation came after  the division hosted a community conversation June 10, during which parents raised concerns about McCauley being unresponsive to their concerns about Hollymead’s former Social Emotional Learning coach, Michael Swiney. 

Swiney turned himself in to authorities on June 3 after being indicted on 11 charges of sexual crimes involving children, two days after the indictment was issued. Swiney is alleged to have committed these crimes while on school grounds. He is currently being held at the Charlottesville-Albemarle County Jail without bond. ACPS Interim Superintendent Chandra Hayes said in July that the district will eliminate the SEL coach role.

“I’m leaving because I feel confident in the job I’ve done,” Spillman said. “I’ve served this community with integrity, worked tirelessly on behalf of our students and families and consistently gone above and beyond what this role has required. I’m really proud of my service and the work we’ve accomplished.”

Spillman continued reading from the prepared statement, adding that her children deserve to have her as a present parent, and they should not be subject to “harassment, hatred, and criticism because their mother serves in public office.”

Spillman was elected in November 2023, defeating conservative Meg Bryce and winning 63% of the votes for the seat.

In October 2025, Spillman came under fire from some community members for one of her social media posts, as reported by Cville Right now. In it, Spillman compared Turning Point USA to the Ku Klux Klan, on the eve of conservative speaker Victoria Cobb coming to speak at ACPS.

Spillman has been considered by some parents as an advocate for those who say they struggle to be heard by the school district. 

“It’s just such a loss for the families of Albemarle County Public Schools,” Holly Odom, an ACPS parent, told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “She’s just one of the first people on the School Board to really listen to the concerns and the things that we were seeing at Greer Elementary in the spring.”

Odom was referring to Haas’ decision to transfer  former Greer Elementary Principal Steven Saunders to Crozet Elementary with little notice. His departure in April left the school temporarily without a principal, until Erica Broudy was announced as the new principal on May 28. 

Odom went on to say that Spillman was fair when listening to parents, “I just felt like she was for all different viewpoints, even viewpoints that may not align with hers directly, she was building bridges. You could just feel that.”  

Because Spillman’s resignation comes in the middle of an election year, someone will be appointed to her seat until the next election. At that point they will need to be elected if they intend to remain on the Board. 

The School Board has 45 days, after Spillman’s last official day, to appoint someone to her seat.

School Board approves independent review of policies and practices

After Spillman’s announcement, the Board proceeded to enter into a closed session to decide if they were going to move forward with an independent review of the school district’s practices and policies. 

After the hour-long closed session, the school board opened the meeting and promptly voted, unanimously, on moving forward with the independent review which will be performed by civil litigation firm Harman Claytor Corrigan & Wellman. The Richmond-based attorneys previously represented the School Board and the district in a lawsuit over the district’s anti-racism policy as reported by The Daily Progress (subscription required).

Some parents did not agree that the firm was the right choice for the job. 

“An investigator examining ACPS should have no history of representing it,” Phil Riese, an ACPS parent, said in an email sent to ACPS teachers and parents. “An investigation of ACPS requires someone whose independence and impartiality is beyond question. I am asking the Board to retain an investigator with no past or present attorney-client relationship with ACPS.”

Board members however, all agree that this is the right choice, and are looking forward to the review findings.

“I would just like to say that we want a thorough, timely, and robust investigation by Harman Claytor, and we anticipate that ACPS will give them full access to the facts,” Board member Jim Dillenbeck said.

Dillenbeck also said that he would encourage the firm to look into identifying any problematic patterns of behavior. He also said he would encourage the firm to look into reporting practices, as well as communication and supervision “from the ground up.”

“The goal isn’t to relitigate one case; it’s to find every point where a signal failed and to fix those systems so that the next time a concern is caught at the first signal rather than the fifth,” Dillenbeck said.

The post Albemarle County School Board member resigns; Board votes for an independent investigation into the school district appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Nota del editor: Todos los enlaces están en inglés.

En 2025, tres agentes del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos (ICE) vestidos de civil — uno de ellos con el rostro cubierto — detuvieron a dos hombres en el Tribunal del Condado de Albemarle, en el centro de Charlottesville. El operativo provocó protestas y aumentó el temor entre muchas familias inmigrantes sobre los riesgos potenciales de atender a una audiencia judicial.

A principios de este año, la gobernadora de Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, vetó un proyecto de ley que habría restringido los arrestos por asuntos de inmigración civil dentro de los tribunales estatales y los centros de votación, salvo que los agentes contaran con una orden judicial, según informó VPM. Al mismo tiempo, emitió una orden ejecutiva que instruye a las agencias estatales a verificar que los agentes federales que ingresen a áreas no públicas de propiedades del estado con fines de control migratorio presenten una orden judicial.

Lo ocurrido en Albemarle no fue un caso aislado. Desde que la segunda administración de Donald Trump intensificó las acciones de deportación a principios de 2025, medios de comunicación de todo el país, entre ellos PBS y la Associated Press, han documentado detenciones realizadas por ICE dentro y fuera de tribunales en todo el país.

Miembros de la comunidad y organizaciones locales dijeron a Charlottesville Tomorrow que estas detenciones han generado miedo entre personas inmigrantes, al punto de que algunas consideran no asistir a sus audiencias. Sin embargo, faltar a una cita ante la corte puede tener consecuencias legales muy graves.

Para ayudar a responder algunas de las preguntas más frecuentes de la comunidad, Charlottesville Tomorrow conversó con Elizabeth Schmelzel, abogada de imigración con el Legal Aid Justice Center y profesora de ley en la Universidad de Virginia, sobre lo que las personas inmigrantes deben saber antes de presentarse ante la corte.

Nota del editor: Cada caso es diferente. La siguiente información es de carácter general y no sustituye el asesoramiento legal de un abogado.

Charlottesville Tomorrow: ¿Deberían los miembros de la comunidad inmigrante seguir asistiendo a sus audiencias en la corte de inmigración? ¿Cuáles son los riesgos asociados si no se presentan?

Elizabeth Schmelzel: El riesgo de no asistir es extremadamente alto. Si una persona no se presenta a su audiencia, casi siempre recibirá una orden de deportación. Eso significa que ICE tendrá una razón adicional — y una base legal — para buscar a esa persona, detenerla e intentar deportarla.

Por eso, como abogada, nunca recomiendo que alguien falte a una audiencia de inmigración.

También hay otra información importante que la comunidad debe conocer. Hace aproximadamente un mes, un tribunal federal en California — si no me equivoco, el 23 de junio — determinó que el gobierno ya no puede enviar agentes de ICE a las cortes de inmigración para detener a personas que acuden a sus audiencias.*

En Virginia ya no estamos viendo arrestos en las cortes de inmigración con la frecuencia que observábamos hace diez o doce meses. Además, ahora existe esta decisión judicial, lo que significa que esas detenciones ya no deberían ocurrir en ninguna parte del país. Por supuesto, nadie puede garantizar que eso nunca suceda, pero es una noticia importante para la comunidad.

*Nota del editor: En junio, el juez Casey Pitts, del Tribunal Federal del Distrito Norte de California, dictaminó que los agentes de ICE no pueden realizar detenciones en las cortes de inmigración en todo el país. Se espera que la decisión sea impugnada en los tribunales, según informó The New York Times.

Hemos escuchado que las detenciones en las cortes de inmigración en Virginia ya habían comenzado a disminuir antes de esa decisión judicial. ¿Por qué? 

Es una muy buena pregunta. La verdad es que no lo sé. Solo puedo hablar de lo que hemos observado como equipo. Según nuestra experiencia, las detenciones aumentaron considerablemente en agosto y septiembre de 2025, y luego empezaron a disminuir. También vimos detenciones durante el verano, definitivamente ocurrieron en junio y julio, pero el punto más alto fue entre agosto y septiembre. Después simplemente fueron cada vez menos frecuentes. No puedo decir con certeza por qué ocurrió ese cambio.

¿Cómo era la situación antes de esa disminución?

En las cortes penales ya se registraban algunas detenciones por parte de ICE incluso durante la administración Biden, aunque no ocurrían con la misma frecuencia.

En las cortes de inmigración, en cambio, yo nunca había visto algo así en toda mi carrera antes de enero de 2025. Fue realmente impactante. Tengo un cliente ahora que fue detenido el verano pasado cuando asistió a su audiencia de inmigración. Tenemos varios clientes que continúan detenidos después de detenciones en cortes de imigracion. Así que sí, vimos numerosos casos durante el último año. Pero como ya dije, hubo un periodo en el que los arrestos aumentaron mucho y luego comenzaron a disminuir. Después de septiembre u octubre dejaron de ser tan frecuentes. Y no fueron solamente los casos que aparecieron en los medios de comunicación. Durante varios meses hubo detenciones en los tribunales de inmigración de Sterling y Annadale. 

*Nota del editor: Los tribunales de inmigración de Sterling y Annadale son las dos principales cortes de inmigración que atienden a gran parte del centro de Virginia, incluida Charlottesville y el condado de Albemarle.

Si una persona todavía teme ser detenida por ICE dentro o fuera de la corte, ¿qué puede hacer para reducir ese riesgo antes de acudir a su audiencia?

Como mencioné antes, las detenciones en las cortes de inmigración han disminuido y, además, ya no deberían estar ocurriendo debido a la decisión judicial. Pero si una persona está preocupada por la posibilidad de ser detenida por ICE, lo más importante es prepararse con anticipación.

Cada familia debería tener un plan. Es importante hablar de quién cuidará a los hijos y qué pasará con las pertenencias o los asuntos importantes si uno de los padres es detenido. Las reglas varían según el estado. En Virginia existe una figura legal conocida como “tutor de reserva” (“standby guardianship” en inglés) que permite designar de antemano a una persona para cuidar de los hijos si el padre o la madre no puede hacerlo. También existen poderes notariales que autorizan a otra persona a tomar decisiones importantes en caso de una ausencia. 

Aunque una familia no haya completado esos trámites legales, es fundamental conversar sobre qué hacer en caso de una emergencia. ¿Con quién se quedarían los niños? ¿Quién avisaría a la escuela si uno de los padres fuera detenido o deportado? Si existe el riesgo de una detención, contar con un plan puede marcar una gran diferencia.

También recomiendo que las personas memoricen o lleven anotado su número de registro de extranjero (“A-Number” en inglés) si tienen uno, así como el número de teléfono de cualquier abogado u organización comunitaria que las esté ayudando con su caso. Lo ideal es escribir esos números directamente en el brazo, porque no podrán llevar nada consigo al entrar en el centro de detención.

Nota del editor: El número de registro de extranjero (“A-Number” en inglés) es un número único de siete, ocho o nueve dígitos, precedido por la letra “A”, que el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional asigna para identificar el expediente migratorio de una persona. Ese número permanece igual de por vida y aparece en documentos oficiales, como la residencia permanente y los permisos de trabajo.

¿Qué debe hacer una persona si un agente de ICE se le acerca dentro o fuera de una corte de inmigración?

Como mencioné antes, los agentes de ICE no deberían estar realizando detenciones dentro de las cortes de inmigración. En las cortes penales la situación es diferente. Si una persona comparece en una corte penal, ICE puede considerar que existe una posible relación con un delito, por lo que el contexto cambia.

En cualquier caso, la persona puede decir: “Tengo derecho a guardar silencio y voy a ejercer ese derecho. Quiero hablar con mi abogado.” (En inglés: “I have a right to remain silent, which I’m going to exercise, and I would like to speak to my attorney.”) Es decir, si ya tiene un abogado.

Lo que nunca recomiendo es correr o intentar escapar. Hacerlo puede darles a las autoridades un motivo adicional para efectuar una detención.

¿Les daría el mismo consejo a las personas que tienen una audiencia en una corte penal?

Yo no soy abogada penalista. Esa es, sin duda, una conversación que las personas deben tener con un defensor público o abogado. Lo que sí puedo decir es que no presentarse a una audiencia penal también tiene consecuencias legales importantes. Una persona puede enfrentar un nuevo cargo por no comparecer ante la corte o puede emitirse una orden de arresto en su contra. Como abogada de inmigración, nunca podría aconsejarle a alguien que ignore una orden judicial. Si la corte le ordena presentarse, mi responsabilidad es recomendarle que cumpla con esa obligación.

Si un miembro de la comunidad es detenido por ICE, ¿qué sucede después? ¿Qué pueden hacer esa persona o sus familiares?

ICE cuenta con una herramienta en internet (locator.ice.gov) para localizar a las personas detenidas. Si un ser querido es detenido, la familia puede buscarlo utilizando su número de registro de extranjero (“A-Number” en inglés) y su país de nacionalidad. Por eso es tan importante que toda la familia conozca ese número.

La herramienta permite saber en qué centro de detención se encuentra la persona. Sin embargo, durante las primeras 24 o incluso 72 horas después de la detención, es posible que esa información todavía no aparezca porque la persona puede estar siendo trasladada entre distintos centros de detención. Sé que esa espera puede ser muy angustiante para las familias, pero lamentablemente a veces es necesario esperar un poco antes de que el sistema se actualice.

En Virginia, el Legal Aid Justice Center (Centro de Justicia y Asistencia Legal) forma parte de una coalición de organizaciones comunitarias que administra una línea telefónica de respuesta rápida para casos de detención. La persona detenida o sus familiares pueden llamar a esa línea para solicitar ayuda. Aunque no funciona las 24 horas del día, el equipo atiende durante muchas horas diariamente. Si nadie responde de inmediato, pueden dejar un mensaje con su información para que el personal evalúe si puede brindar asistencia legal directamente o referir el caso a otra organización.

La línea de respuesta rápida de PODER VA es 1-844-253-7882, también conocida como 844-ALERT-VA.

The post ¿Le preocupa ir a la corte por miedo a ICE? Esto es lo que una abogada local de inmigración quiere que la comunidad sepa appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Editor’s note: Leer este artículo en español.

In 2025, three plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — one concealing his face with a balaclava — detained two men at the Albemarle County Courthouse in downtown Charlottesville, sparking protests and fears among the immigrant community about their safety when attending scheduled court hearings. 

Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed legislation that would have restricted civil immigration arrests inside state courthouses and polling places unless officers had a judicial warrant, as reported by VPM. Along with the veto, Spanberger issued an executive order saying that state agencies would “confirm” that federal agents entering any nonpublic areas of state property for the purpose of immigration enforcement have a valid warrant.

Courthouse arrests like the ones in Albemarle County were not isolated incidents. Since the second Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation efforts at the start of 2025, news organizations across the country, such as PBS and the Associated Press, have documented ICE agents arresting people in and outside of courthouses nationwide.

Community members and local advocates told Charlottesville Tomorrow that the courthouse arrests have left some immigrant community members afraid to attend required court hearings, even as failing to appear in court can carry serious legal consequences.

To help answer some of the most common questions we’re hearing, Charlottesville Tomorrow spoke with Elizabeth Schmelzel, a Charlottesville-based senior immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center and a University of Virginia School of Law lecturer, about what immigrants should know before going to court. Keep in mind that every case is different, and this information is not a substitute for legal advice.

Charlottesville Tomorrow: Should immigrant community members still attend their immigration court hearings? What are the risks associated with missing a court hearing? 

Elizabeth Schmelzel: The risks of not going to court are extremely high. If you don’t go to court, you will almost always get a removal order. The reason why that’s so risky is, if you get a removal order in your name, then ICE has another reason — and now they have a legal basis — to pursue you for detention and removal. 

So it is extremely high-risk. As an attorney, I do not ever advise someone to skip their immigration hearing. 

The other important thing to note is that there was a federal district court in California about a month ago — the date I believe was June 23 — that has said the administration can no longer send ICE agents to immigration courts to arrest non-citizens while they’re at court.* 

So here in Virginia, we are not seeing ICE arrests at immigration courts the way we were, say, 10 or 12 months ago. And now there’s this decision, which means it shouldn’t be happening anywhere. Of course, you can never guarantee anything, but that’s important for people to know.

*Editor’s note: In June, Judge Casey Pitts in the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California ruled that ICE agents nationwide cannot make arrests in immigration courts. The decision is likely to face further legal challenges, according to reporting by The New York Times (subscription required).

We’ve heard arrests at immigration courts were already steadily declining in Virginia. Why?

That is an excellent question. I have no idea. So this is totally anecdotal: It (immigration court arrests) seemed — in our experience from just our team when we were at court — to really peak in August and September of 2025, and then it sort of dissipated. It happened in the summer too; it definitely happened in June and July. We saw it kind of rise in August and September, and then it sort of fell, and I cannot tell you at all why that is. 

What was the situation with ICE arrests in Virginia courthouses before the decline? 

In criminal court, ICE arrests had been happening even under the Biden administration. But not with the same frequency. 

In immigration courts, I had never seen arrests in my career before January 2025. It was shocking. I have a client now who was arrested last summer at immigration court. We have a couple of clients who are still detained after those arrests. So we definitely saw people arrested at immigration court in the past year. But like I said, we had this sort of swell, and then it kind of slowed down. I would say after September-ish, October, we didn’t see it nearly as much. 

But yes, we definitely saw more than just, you know, some of the big examples that got published in the media. In Sterling Immigration Court and Annadale Immigration Court*, there were courthouse arrests for several months. 

*Editor’s note: Sterling Immigration Court and Annandale Immigration Court are the two main immigration courts for much of central Virginia, including Charlottesville and Albemarle County. 

What risk-mitigation steps can be taken before attending court if someone is still worried about being arrested by ICE, in or out of court?

In terms of risk mitigation, again, it (arrests at immigration courts) is decreasing and shouldn’t be happening at all because of the policy being vacated. But if anyone’s worried about ICE arrests more generally, then definitely having a plan in place is really important. 

Definitely having a plan for childcare and any assets, that should be done in advance as a family. Different states have different rules about that. Here in Virginia, there’s something called a standby guardianship. There are powers of attorney that you can have for any big decision that may need to be made in your absence, but the way to do that often depends on state law.

Even if there’s no formal process, families should definitely at least prepare amongst themselves. Like, who would I want the kids to go with? Who’s going to communicate to the school if I am — God forbid — detained or deported? It is good to have an emergency plan in place if someone is at risk of an arrest. 

People should also, if they can, write down or memorize their A-number* if they have one, and the phone number of any legal or advocacy team that they are working with. Whether that’s a community member that’s been helping them with an asylum application, or if they’re fully represented, then their attorney. They should write those numbers down on their arm because they’re not going to be able to take anything inside a detention center with them.

*Editor’s note: An A-Number (Alien Registration Number) is a unique seven, eight or nine-digit identifier starting with the letter “A” assigned by the Department of Homeland Security to track noncitizen records. It is permanent for life and appears on official documents like green cards and work permits.

What should you do if ICE officers approach you in or outside of immigration court?

Again, ICE officers should not be in immigration court. For criminal court, it’s very different. If someone is in criminal court, then ICE sort of has a probable cause for knowing that they have possibly committed a crime, so it’s a little more complicated at criminal court. 

But either way, what people can do is say, ‘I have a right to remain silent, which I’m going to exercise, and I would like to speak to my attorney,’ you know, if they have one. It is a very, very bad idea to run or to try to escape because that gives law enforcement probable cause to then make an arrest.

Would you give the same advice about attending your hearing for criminal court?

So I’m not a criminal attorney, and a lot of people in criminal court, thankfully, they are often appointed a public defender. And so that’s definitely a conversation that people need to have with their attorney. But — I’m not a criminal lawyer — but what I do know is, not attending a criminal hearing, there are also legal consequences. So you can get another charge, a failure to appear. You can get a bench warrant. Like there are lots of consequences that are very serious for the criminal case and the immigration case. So again, as an immigration lawyer, I cannot, nor would I ever, tell someone not to attend a hearing because they’re being ordered by the court to attend, and that means I have to advise my clients to follow the law.

If a community member is arrested by ICE, what happens next, and what steps can they or family members take? 

So there’s something called the ICE detainee locator, and it’s locator.ice.gov. And if your loved one gets arrested, you can search for them by A-number and then the country of nationality. That’s why having the whole family know that A-number is really helpful. When you look that up, you can see where people are being held. I will say, sometimes in like the first 24 — maybe even the first 72 hours — people are getting shuffled around so they’re not showing up in that system. That can be very, very scary. And so unfortunately it can be a bit of a waiting game, but that’s the way to find folks. 

Then, we (the Legal Aid Justice Center) here in Virginia are part of a coalition with other community groups that runs a hotline, so when people get detained, they — from detention — or their loved one, can call this hotline. We staff the hotline many hours a day, but not 24 hours a day. So people can leave their information with us, and we will screen them for any legal services that we can provide directly or refer them to perhaps other organizations who can. 

And that’s called the PODER VA rapid response hotline, which can be reached at 1-844-253-7882 (or 844-ALERT-VA.)

The post Worried about going to court because of ICE? Here’s what a local immigration lawyer wants community members to know appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

I grew up in Southwood Mobile Home park, a housing community located off 5th Street on the outskirts of the City of Charlottesville. By 2007, it was the largest Latino neighborhood in central Virginia. It was a mix of Mexicans, Salvadorians and Hondurans, who took up residency with people from many places.

In 2007, it was purchased by Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville in a bold effort to save and support residents from the threat of displacement posed by encroaching developers, as well as a severely failing infrastructure that posed significant health and safety risks. At the time, the neighborhood had more than 1,500 residents, according to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s news reports.

Nearly 20 years later, Southwood has made monumental strides in transforming the land into an inclusive, mixed-income neighborhood; Habitat’s goal was to provide at least 500 affordable homes for many of the original residents. Truly a national model for resident-led development, it continues to expand, with an anticipated completion of 2037 and a total cost of more than $500 million. And the influx of support and financial investment hasn’t stopped. Habitat for Humanity was the recipient of a $29.1 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in December 2024.

Growing up, my memories of Southwood are rooted in a more impoverished and destitute experience. I knew we were poor. It was obvious in the environment we inhabited and evident in how my parents worked paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet. My sister and I had free and reduced lunch. Our clothes were secondhand and sometimes donated. During our Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, the schools would deliver us toy gifts and canned food with non-perishables. There were many Latino immigrant families like ours, hard-working but always struggling to find sustainable employment. My mother cleaned houses for the wealthy, my father was a lumberyard worker.

For many of the neighborhood youth, the thought of pursuing higher education was an unrealistic endeavor. Very rarely did you hear about someone from Southwood getting accepted into an institution of higher learning. But my sister, who is a year older than I, was the first in our family to attend a four-year university, eventually earning her undergraduate degree and MBA from Liberty University. I followed suit, attending James Madison University on a full-ride scholarship as a Centennial Scholar.

This was all made possible through organizations such as Head Start and the Boys and Girls Club, which played a vital role in cultivating a love of learning and instilling in us a deep desire to break free from the chains of poverty. The number of teen members at the Boys and Girls Club in Southwood was in the single digits when I was growing up — there were nine of us. Today, overall there are hundreds of members; the club is staffed with headquarters in a renovated building where a dingy corner store once stood. Kids go on trips to Kings Dominion and the Richmond Zoo. Tutoring and help with schoolwork are provided. The community uses the space for a large back-to-school festival in which backpacks and school supplies are given out. There was no city bus in Southwood growing up, but now CAT Bus Route 3 provides reliable transportation to key areas of Charlottesville for many Latino immigrants who cannot afford their own cars.

It is a stark contrast to my upbringing, where many in the community were trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty and its devastating outgrowth of addiction, domestic abuse, and the pressure to join gangs and engage in criminal activities.

To witness the incredible transformation of Southwood from 2007 to today, I feel an enormous sense of pride, jubilancy, and relief that the Latino community I was raised in, once threatened by profit-driven developers and certain displacement, now has resources, support and enhanced opportunities to climb the socioeconomic ladder.

And the growth and lasting presence of Latino immigrants does not stop in Southwood. There are numerous Latino-owned businesses that have opened and achieved lasting prosperity in the greater Charlottesville area. You can buy delicious Salvadorian pupusas at Mi Casita Restaurant. Try mouth-watering Mexican tamales at Super Amanecer. Enjoy a refreshing paleta ice cream from La Flor Michoacana, with its dizzying array of bold flavors and tasty fruits. Buy the freshest choice cut meats from El Tio Variedades, or authentic handmade coffee mugs from La Guadalupana Latino Market. Take home some exotic Latin American fruit from Amigo Mercado Latino. Need a stylish hairdo or color highlights? Head over to Ana’s Salon, owned by an entrepreneurial and established Salvadorian immigrant. For a fresh fade or beard trim, House of Cuts Barber Studio offers premier services by Fernando Garay, a prestigious barber and son of immigrants from Colombia and Puerto Rico. Find C’ville Bachata Social’s dancing classes at businesses all over the region, roll the dice on karaoke at Mejicali. And if all of those don’t sound enticing, you can never go wrong with the numerous Latino-owned taco and food trucks found throughout the city.

And perhaps no other indicator of the growth of the Latino community has been as pronounced as the annual Cville Sabroso Festival, which will be celebrating its 14th year on Saturday, Sept. 19. In Sept. 2025, the Charlottesville City Council formally recognized the role the festival plays in the community with an official proclamation — the first time the city honored the festival was for its landmark first year. Founded in 2012 by the nonprofit organization Sin Barreras, the festival is a celebration of Latino culture and heritage that offers an array of food, music, and dance performances, artisan crafts and community resources. The first festival was at the Incarnation Catholic Church; it was later held at McGuffey Art Center, Booker T. Washington Park, IX Park and, for the last two years, the pavilion on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. The popularity and surge of public support for Cville Sabroso over the years has been remarkable to witness.

My own journey with Sin Barreras reflects the deep civic connection Cville Sabroso inspires across our region. I first started as a volunteer helping out in any capacity needed to keep the festival running smoothly. This year, I am proud to serve on the festival’s Sponsorship Committee, working directly alongside local businesses, civic leaders and community partners. From long-standing local supporters who have anchored our efforts for years to enthusiastic new partners eager to invest in our mission, building these bridges ensures that Cville Sabroso remains a free, thriving hub of culture for every family in central Virginia.

Sadly, however, across the United States, a climate of fear fueled by immigration raids is forcing the cancellation of Hispanic heritage festivals and other public events celebrating cultural pride. Event organizers report that the perceived threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids is creating an environment of deep fear and apprehension. During our run-through of Cville Sabroso’s itinerary last year, we were informed that we simply could not promise a safe, celebratory space for immigrant attendees. We couldn’t say ICE would not show up.

Across the nation, the climate for large-scale cultural events has grown increasingly complex. In major metro areas like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and New York City, many signature Hispanic heritage festivals and public gatherings were tragically canceled or scaled back, weighed down by an pervasive environment of fear surrounding ICE enforcement.

Yet, against that backdrop, Charlottesville chose a different path — and Cville Sabroso stood tall as a beacon of joy, resilience and unity.

While our leadership team faced the candid reality that we could not unconditionally guarantee federal agents wouldn’t show up, Cville Sabroso refused to let fear eclipse our purpose. We gathered anyway. We danced, shared our traditions, lifted up local vendors, and claimed our space on the Downtown Mall with unyielding pride.

In doing so, Cville Sabroso did more than just host a successful festival — it provided a national blueprint for what it truly means to honor and preserve Latin American identity. It proved that even when national circumstances attempt to quiet our heritage, a community rooted in courage and solidarity can create an undeniable hub of cultural appreciation.

The positive impact on our city, our families and our local economy is a testament to what happens when we refuse to retreat. Cville Sabroso isn’t just an annual event; it is a declaration that our stories, our contributions and our culture belong at the very heart of Charlottesville.

Throughout my upbringing, I’ve seen the incredible transformation of Southwood and the rise of a thriving Latino community in Charlottesville. Today, we face new battles. Increasingly hostile rhetoric has led to a climate of fear, threatening to dismantle the very progress my community has worked so hard to achieve. We see it in the drop in foot traffic at local businesses, the fear-fueled absences at cultural festivals, and the devastating cuts to programs that once lifted families like mine out of poverty. Head Start, which fueled my love for reading, has seen proposals to significantly cut its federal funding. Language immersion programs have been eliminated. ICE agents have entered our courthouses unannounced to apprehend immigrants, many with no criminal convictions or history of violence. These aren’t just statistics; they are direct assaults on the spirit of a community that has found its home and its voice here.

Yet, I remain steadfast in my hope. I believe in a future where Charlottesville lives up to its promise as a city of inclusion and opportunity for all. I envision a Charlottesville that isn’t just a beacon of hope for local immigrants, but a model for the entire nation. It will be a place where the cultural richness of the Latino community is not just tolerated, but celebrated and woven into the very fabric of the city. A place where the success of a single person, whether a business owner, a student, or a new homeowner, is seen as a victory for everyone.

The path forward will not be easy, but the groundwork has been laid. The stories of Southwood, of thriving businesses and vibrant festivals, are not just isolated victories; they are the foundation of a new Charlottesville. It is a city that understands its past and has the courage to build a better future. I have faith that Charlottesville will continue to choose courage, and in doing so, will become a city where every person, regardless of their origin, can live without fear and with the certainty of a brighter tomorrow.

The post From housing to small businesses to vibrant culture, here’s what Richard Aguilar wants you to know about his community appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Former Virginia immigration judge Anam Petit was in a courtroom at the Annandale Immigration Court in September 2025, in between hearings and about to issue a decision on a case, when she got an email. 

It was from the acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the agency that oversees immigration courts, and said that she had been terminated, effective immediately. There was no further explanation. 

She stepped out of the courtroom for a moment to text her husband the news, but didn’t have time to wait for a response. 

“There were folks in the courtroom waiting for me to issue my decision,” she told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was to give that oral decision, which is a very complex, difficult part of being an immigration judge, while my mind is trying to go in a million different directions and I’m trying to bring it back to this case. And then I packed up my office, because I had to give my government equipment back by the end of the day, and that was my last day as an immigration judge.” 

Across the country, cases like these have become increasingly common, immigration lawyers and former judges told Charlottesville Tomorrow. It’s emblematic of a broader politicization of the immigration courts by the second Trump administration that they say has had dire consequences for judicial independence and due process, including in central Virginia.

Mass firings reshape the nation’s immigration courts

Charlottesville Tomorrow spoke to four former immigration judges for this story, three of whom worked in Virginia courts and two of whom agreed to let Charlottesville Tomorrow use their names. 

It used to be rare for immigration judges to be fired, and they were generally only fired following serious complaints or issues, Petit told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “You would have never heard of an immigration judge being fired without cause,” she said. 

But since January 2025, the Trump administration has fired more than 113 out of around 700 immigration judges without cause or explanation, as reported by The Guardian, while others were reassigned or said they felt compelled to take buyouts or retire early to avoid being fired. The administration recently filled many of those empty roles in May 2026, swearing in 77 new permanent and five new temporary immigration judges, according to Reuters. 

One former Virginia immigration judge told Charlottesville Tomorrow that they accepted a buyout because they feared they would be fired.

Another former Virginia immigration judge told Charlottesville Tomorrow that they’d dreamed of being an immigration judge for their entire career, but left under the second Trump administration because they also feared that they would be fired if they didn’t leave on their own terms. Both judges spoke to Charlottesville Tomorrow on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. 

According to an April 2026 investigation by The New York Times (subscription required), White House and DOJ officials have been closely monitoring judges’ rulings, threatening disciplinary action or firing those who grant too many asylum or bond requests. More than two dozen immigration judges who served under the second Trump administration told The New York Times that they felt “a consistent sense of pressure to deport immigrants or risk losing their jobs.”

NPR analyzed the professional backgrounds of 70 immigration judges across the country who received termination notices between February 2025 and October 2025. The investigation found that judges with immigration defense experience accounted for the largest portion, or about 44%, of the firings. After the firings, judges with immigration defense experience made up 26% of judges remaining on the bench. The fired judges have since been replaced with less experienced temporary military judges or political appointees, The Guardian reported. The DOJ told NPR it does not target judges for termination based on their prior experience and that the terminations were not politically targeted.

A DOJ spokesperson told Charlottesville Tomorrow via email that, while they wouldn’t comment on personnel matters, the “DOJ is restoring integrity to our immigration system,” adding that the Biden administration was “forcing immigration courts to implement a de facto amnesty for hundreds of thousands” of non-citizens. 

DOJ leadership, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, have told outlets like the Associated Press that judges under the Biden administration were too lenient in granting asylum or other statuses to applicants, arguing that the Trump administration’s mass firings of immigration judges is part of a much-needed overhaul to help fix an inefficient system and cut down on the current backlog of almost 4 million cases. In an April 2026 press release, the White House described the firings as part of an overhaul of a “broken system” that included “replacing activist judges.”

The number of individuals granted asylum spiked during the Biden administration, as did the number of denials. That’s because the number of asylum petitions filed in immigration court rose to “record highs” during the later part of his administration, according to data from the Congressional Research Service. The number of applications have remained at roughly the same level during the Trump administration.

Immigration judges oversee civil immigration cases, deciding whether people can remain in the United States or be removed. They hear asylum claims, removal proceedings and other cases involving immigration status. People typically appear before an immigration judge after the federal government initiates removal proceedings against them or when they seek forms of relief that require a judge’s approval, such as asylum, cancellation of removal or certain waivers.

Petit was fired from Virginia’s Annandale Immigration court, the primary court handling cases for Northern and central Virginia, including Charlottesville. Her asylum grant rate of 8.4% was above the current national average of 7.3%. Most of the Annandale immigration judges who were fired or retired under the second Trump administration had higher-than-average grant rates. The vast majority of Annandale’s remaining immigration judges have asylum grant rates below the 7.3% national average. Under the Biden administration, asylum grant rates averaged about 45%, rising from around 30% during the first Trump administration.

“I definitely think that the terminations are political,” Petit told Charlottesville Tomorrow. Petit and other former immigration judges who spoke to Charlottesville Tomorrow said that, from what they’d seen, the administration disproportionately targeted women and judges of color for termination. While the DOJ does not disclose personnel data, some former immigration judges have filed lawsuits alleging the same. Among them are former judges Florence Chamberlin, Irma Pérez, Carla Espinoza and Tania Nemer, who allege they were unlawfully fired because of their sex, race, national origin or political affiliation.

Petit was sworn in as an immigration judge in September 2023 after working as an immigration attorney and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Despite receiving high performance evaluations, Petit said she was fired one day shy of completing her two-year probationary period, a mandatory trial period for all new immigration judges. Now, she’s returning to work as an immigration lawyer.

“Everyone I know in my class who got fired in those days had the exact same experience I did, which is, you got an email, you didn’t get a reason for your termination, you had positive probationary reviews, and then you’re terminated,” she told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “I had a conversation with my assistant chief immigration judge after I was fired, and he told me that he didn’t know about the decision, he wasn’t a part of it and he wrote me a glowing probationary review.” 

“The people being fired, they have wonderful reviews, they’re doing amazing work,” Jeremiah Johnson, a former San Francisco immigration judge and vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, agreed with Petit. “Their supervisors in their courts are taken by shock that they’re being fired. This is not performance-based.” 

Johnson was fired by email in November 2025. He was one of at least 18 San Francisco immigration judges to be fired since 2025, leading to the closure of the San Francisco immigration court, one of the courts most likely to grant asylum applications in the U.S. Like Petit, he said there was no explanation for his firing. 

“I received an email in the afternoon that said, pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, the Attorney General has decided to remove you from your position as an immigration judge, effective today,” Johnson told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “Within 30 seconds, I couldn’t even print out the letter. I was locked out of the computer system, packed up, escorted out of the building.” 

“Judges are being tapped on the shoulder mid-hearing, taken out of their hearing, when they receive that email,” he added. “Imagine that you’re before a judge, you’ve waited years to have your case, and the judge, mid-hearing, says, the Attorney General has just removed me from my position. What confidence does that give you in the system?” 

Political pressure threatens due process, former immigration judges say 

Immigration judges are supposed to have independent judicial decision-making authority, Johnson said. But “by firing judges with no stated cause or reason, you send a chilling effect upon judicial independence.” 

The judges who are left, Johnson added, are operating “under constant threat or fear” of being fired. Because of the mass firings, many feel an implicit pressure to rule in-line with the Trump administration. 

“As it stands, the system itself is not independent,” Johnson told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Christopher Day, a U.S. Army Reserve lawyer who was assigned to serve as a temporary immigration judge in Virginia began hearing cases in late October. He was fired by early December after granting asylum or other relief in six out of 11 cases he heard, which is out of step with the Trump administration’s priorities, as reported by the Associated Press.

Petit also described feelings of pressure and intimidation when immigration judges are seeing so many colleagues terminated. “And despite knowing many judges who are still trying to do the right thing and uphold due process, it’s just getting harder and harder for them emotionally and mentally to do the right thing.” she said. 

At the end of the day, Petit said, the issue isn’t partisan or political — it’s constitutional. When immigration judges lose their independence, she said, it risks the due process rights that the Constitution guarantees everyone, regardless of citizenship.

“The consequences are dire. We are seeing a complete erosion of due process at the courts,” she said. “There is a loss of public trust. Both immigrants and many of the attorneys who represent them have completely lost faith in the immigration court system to be just and fair and rooted in the due process that these immigrants are entitled to.”

“If you care about judicial autonomy and you look at the immigration system, you should be extremely concerned, regardless of your politics,” she added. “Not just citizens, not just residents, but all people are entitled to due process. And the question is, do we still think that’s true? Because if it’s not true for my neighbor who was born on a different side of a border than I was, pretty soon it’s not going to be true for me or for you.”

Elizabeth Schmelzel, who is a Charlottesville-based senior immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center and a University of Virginia School of Law lecturer, agreed.

“The politicization of the immigration court is ghastly,” she said. “You cannot believe that in the United States of America, in 2026, judges are being yanked off the bench in this summary way with no reason in a one-line email, because frankly, they aren’t complying with the goals of certain people.” 

“My colleague was at a hearing several months ago for a bond case, and in the middle of the hearing, the judge received an email saying, ‘you are not allowed to hear detained cases anymore,'” Schmelzel said. “I had appeared in front of that particular judge more than any other judge in my career. She’s not biased towards us at all, I’ve lost many cases with her, I’ve won some as well. But she was removed, as was our other detained judge, because they were granting too many bonds in the eyes of the administration.”

Until last year, temporary immigration judges generally had to be former immigration judges, administrative law judges or DOJ attorneys with at least 10 years of immigration law experience. But after slashing those qualifications in August, 2025 so that any licensed attorney may now serve as a temporary immigration judge, the Trump administration is replacing fired immigration judges with temporary judges who often have no immigration law experience.

This has contributed to a significant loss of institutional knowledge across immigration courts, Johnson told Charlottesville Tomorrow. 

“With the firing of experienced immigration judges, you don’t have that mentorship, that depth of knowledge that new judges can rely on,” he said. “I learned from judges who had that institutional knowledge, and then I could pass that on to other judges. That’s lacking now.” 

On top of everything, the immigration judges that are left, including the less experienced, temporary judges, are now expected to fulfill a much heavier caseload at a much faster rate than in the past. 

“When I took the bench, it was one hearing in the morning, one hearing in the afternoon,” Johnson said. “When I was fired, I was scheduled for six individual hearing cases a day.”

“Individual judges no longer have the choice to take more time to navigate complex cases,” he added. “It’s a structural problem — the chilling effects of the firings, but also not being able to handle your own docket.” 

Combined, these factors have left immigration lawyers feeling exhausted and demoralized.

“It feels impossible for immigrants to get their due process,” Petit, who is once again a practicing immigration lawyer in Virginia, told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “From a mental health perspective, I feel more of an emotional toll doing these cases.” 

“This is the worst it has ever been,” Schmelzel agreed. “It is indescribable. When people ask me how my day was, oftentimes I don’t even know what to say.” 

High turnover of judges leads to ‘confusion and chaos’

Schmelzel is seeing the effect on her own cases in Charlottesville, she said. 

For instance, it’s much harder to win asylum cases, she told Charlottesville Tomorrow. Since the start of the second Trump administration, the number of asylum seekers approved for protection has fallen dramatically, from more than 50% under some periods of the Biden administration to historic lows of just 7%, according to The White House.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest administrative body for interpreting and applying immigration laws, also began ruling disproportionately in favor of the government after the Trump administration cut its membership by nearly half and filled the remaining slate of 15 judges with Trump appointees, as reported by NPR. Since then, the Board has ruled in favor of the government in 97% of publicly posted cases throughout 2025, increasing drastically from 64% under Biden in 2024, according to NPR.

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Since it was reconstituted, the Board has enacted multiple rulings limiting the rights of non-citizens, Schmelzel told Charlottesville Tomorrow. For instance, In the past, immigration judges had the authority to grant release from detention on bond if they determined that detainees without disqualifying criminal records were not a danger to the community or a flight risk. But in September 2025, the Board reversed decades of precedent, essentially guaranteeing mandatory detention for undocumented immigrants by proclaiming that anyone who crossed the border unlawfully is ineligible to be released on bond. The new rule makes people more likely to self-deport before exercising their legal rights rather than risk staying in detention indefinitely, immigration lawyers told Charlottesville Tomorrow.

“The biggest change, and one of the hardest parts of immigration work right now is just how many people are detained,” Petit told Charlottesville Tomorrow. “Detained cases just take on a whole new level of resources and mental health and emotional toll to the respondents, to their family members and to the attorneys.” 

Recent Board decisions have also severely restricted the rights of children in immigration court, Schmelzel added. In November 2025, the Board issued a decision limiting the ability of immigration judges to pause removal cases for minors awaiting Special Immigrant Juvenile status petitions to be processed or finalized. 

“This kid is probably going to get a visa that leads them to a green card, they don’t really need to be in court,” Schmelzel said. “That is no longer considered good cause for pausing or terminating immigration court proceedings, which is a very significant change.” 

“So, again, this idea that it’s all about efficiency isn’t really borne out by the data, because it’s more efficient to close that process and let somebody else take that slot in immigration court,” she added. Instead of ensuring efficiency, she said, the change makes it easier to deport more individuals, in this case children, who might have otherwise had a good case to stay in the country.

Petit agreed. 

“It’s very inefficient to fire immigration judges if your goal is efficiency,” she said. “Judges are there one day and gone the next, and that leads to confusion and chaos.” 

“The separation of powers is crumbling,” Schmelzel added. “As an immigration practitioner, that is the thing that gives me this existential fear for my country. What is happening now is a deviation from even the worst times.”

The post ‘The worst it has ever been’: Virginia immigration lawyers, former immigration judges warn of a court system in crisis appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.