Spanberger: It’s ‘Horrifying’ that Crossing the Border Illegally is ‘Considered a Criminal Act’
A Trafalgar/Insider Advantage poll, the only survey in the RCP average conducted after Spanberger’s disastrous Oct. 9 debate performance, showed her lead had dwindled to 3 points.
For a smart woman, Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger sure has made a lot of dumb mistakes lately. In the clip below from an undated interview, she tells a journalist, “And what we’ve seen recently, the really, I think, horrifying thing is that now under the new administration, or the Trump administration, where every cross into the United States is considered a criminal act.”
Considering that 8 U.S.C. § 1325 — the statute that criminalizes unauthorized entry into the United States — was enacted in 1929, the law has been on the books for nearly a century. However, in its zeal to import a new class of future Democratic voters, the Biden administration made a deliberate choice not to enforce it.
That strategic decision allowed an estimated 15 million illegal immigrants to pour into the country, including gang members and other criminals. This resulted in the loss of American lives, placed a severe strain on public resources, and left the Trump administration with the daunting task of trying to undo the damage.
As a congresswoman, Spanberger swore an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, the foundation of all American laws. If she wins her bid for Virginia’s governor’s mansion, she will take that same oath again. Yet here she is, just two weeks before the election, calling U.S. immigration law “horrifying.”
WATCH: Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger says it's "horrifying" that crossing the border illegally is "considered a criminal act." pic.twitter.com/Z0CTokgH4d
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 17, 2025
Her out-of-touch remark was only the latest misstep in a campaign marked by unforced errors — and it handed yet another gift to her Republican opponent, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.
Earle-Sears currently trails Spanberger by 6.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. While Earle-Sears still faces an uphill battle, up until early September, Spanberger had held onto a consistent lead of 10 to 12 points.
It’s worth noting that a Trafalgar/Insider Advantage poll, the only survey in the RCP average conducted after Spanberger’s disastrous Oct. 9 debate performance, showed her lead had dwindled to 3 points.
The biggest takeaway from the debate was Spanberger’s refusal to call on Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic candidate for attorney general, to withdraw from the race after disturbing text messages he’d sent in 2022 emerged in which he fantasized about the violent deaths of former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R) and his children.
Pressed several times by the debate moderator to disavow her support for Jones, Spanberger admitted that while his texts were “abhorrent,” she would leave it to voters to decide. “The voters now have the information, and it is up to voters to make an individual choice based on this information.”
BRUTAL
Debate moderator has to follow up repeatedly for TWO MINUTES to get Abigail Spanberger to say whether she still endorses Jay Jones.
"We are all running our individual races" pic.twitter.com/KZhebTiWLe
— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) October 9, 2025
The first sign of trouble in the race came in late August when an elderly, white liberal woman, who turned out to be a Spanberger campaign volunteer, showed up at an Earle-Sears event carrying a vile, racist sign that read, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.”
Earlier that week, Fox News reported that the U.S. Department of Education had designated five Northern Virginia schools as “high-risk” and placed restrictions on their federal funding. Those schools had recently faced backlash over policies allowing transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. After speaking at an Arlington County School Board meeting convened to address the issue, Earle-Sears spoke with constituents outside the venue.
Asked to comment on the sign, Spanberger couldn’t be bothered. Her campaign issued a statement that said, “Abigail condemns this repulsive display. It’s racist, abhorrent, and unacceptable.”
Disappointed by this response, Spanberger was later pressed for a direct comment and replied in a Facebook post:
As I said yesterday, the sign displayed in Arlington last night was racist and abhorrent.
Many Virginians remember the segregated water fountains (and buses and schools and neighborhoods) of Virginia’s recent history. And no matter the intended purpose or tone and no matter how much one might find someone else’s beliefs objectionable, to threaten a return of Jim Crow and segregation to a Black woman is unacceptable. Full stop.
She would have done herself a big favor had she responded directly the first time, rather than through a subordinate.
BREAKING: The woman who held up this sickening racist sign to protest Winsome Sears, has been identified as a campaign volunteer for Virginia Governor Democrat nominee Abigail Spanberger pic.twitter.com/uz6pl0yUqs
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 22, 2025
As mentioned earlier, Spanberger still holds a lead in the race. It remains to be seen whether the clip of her telling a journalist she is “horrified” that crossing the border illegally is considered a crime will be enough to propel Earle-Sears across the finish line. Yet, when added to the growing list of Spanberger’s unforced errors, it underscores a campaign increasingly defined by self-inflicted wounds — and one that may be testing the limits of voter patience in the final stretch.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
She’s still going to win. I listened and she cleverly pronounced “every” so as to suggest that at least some crossings (which she never described as illegal) were not illegal. She made no stupid remark and appealed to her base.
I detest her, but there is no story here.
The MSM and various polls said that Terry McAuliffe was going to win. We see how that turned out.
Spanberger has a list gaffs and negatives a mile long. If you have watched her, she has no appeal.
Terry wasn’t running against Aunt Jemima.
It’s a stupid statement because it’s a lie.
She’s a disgrace. And stupid.
She said that “now under the new administration, or the Trump administration, where every cross into the United States is considered a criminal act”. She can’t possibly be claiming that the Trump administration considers literally every crossing into the USA to be illegal, because millions of people cross into the USA every year, at legal crossing points, with the complete authorization and approval of that same administration. So she can only be referring to those crossings that the current administration does consider criminal, i.e. those made without legal authority.
And those have been crimes for as long as we’ve had immigration laws, which is something like 150 years. There’s been no change. Even the Biden administration treated such crossings as crimes, although it made no effort to prevent them; but it did deport well over a million people.
So she’s horrified by what was standard policy even by Biden, let alone every previous Democrat administration.
You people are giving your reasoned opinion as to the law and a strict construction to her words. She was appealing at an emotional level to her addlepated female and cuck male fan base. She is acting in the role of politician.
Sure, if you count turning someone back at the border as a deportation.
No. Millions were actually, literally, deported during Biden’s term.
Due to the backlog of immigration cases and the lack of immigration judges I highly doubt *millions* were provided a deportation hearing and formally deported which is, unfortunately, a bar to the application of 8 USC 1326 Re-entry after Deportation, a felony.
According to this, approximately 1.5 million deportations were carried out from FY 2021 to FY 2024.
Its horrifying that >0 people would ever vote for this creature.
You are aware that Democrats are immune to The Rule of Law, aren’t you?
It appears they are immune to many things, including shame.
As I have said before, shame requires a conscience and there is little evidence that Democrats possess that quality.
No what’s horrible is this country is infested with stupid AWFL’s like you who run for office but are completely unable to govern wisely because they lack both the common sense and intelligence to do so.
If crossing an international border against the will [and laws] of the government of the country entered is NOT a criminal act, then can it be assumed that when the Wehrmacht crossed the borders of Poland on September 1, 1939 that said entry was NOT an invasion and was legal?
I tend to refer to those crossing our borders with Mexico [and this is with the connivance of the Mexican government] against our will and laws as “hostile foreign invaders”.
Subotai Bahadur
Borders have been demarcated and defended with walls, gates, armed sentries, barbed wire, and/or bullets since well before the Roman Empire. As a Cold War baby, I remember when “getting across the border” was hazardous to your life. This woman lives in la-la land.
I well understand. I have family that escaped Red China.
Subotai Bahadur
I was reinforcing you, not disagreeing. 👍
The witch should cross into Mexico at some random location, then demand to be fed and housed by their government.
Rev up the busses from ICE holding facilities and send them to the open invitation to Spanberger’s house that she just implied. If the perceived implication of her remarks was incorrect she can always ask them to leave and call ICE to remove them.
So she is a all for the citizen replacement and Marxism no borders.
Hey everyone!!!!!!!!!
Spanberger says we can cross into her house because entering property where you don’t belong isn’t a criminal act.
Party begins at 10. I am bringing the pizza and beer!!!!
Nah. BBQ and Tequila.
No. You should demand Spanberger supply it, then riot when she doesn’t.
And while we were distracted by the open borders, the Democrats passed several trillion dollar stimulus packages. Most of that money was burned away in corruption and DEI (a chunk of it was, however, redistributed downwards towards poor people and illegals). No new highways, no new power plants, no new airports, no super trains linking our major cities. Nothing. Just waste and corruption.
Spanberger also apparently considers it horrifying that killing political opponents and their children is an illegal act.
So….if I rob a bank and get caught do I get to keep the money???
Yes if you’re trans and/or get a Soros prosecutor. Otherwise, roll dem bones.
“For a smart woman…”
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Over at Virtual Mirage, a former CIA Officer commented in the October 8 edition…
“She’s what is referred to in the trades as a “five-year hire plan.” The reference to the “five-year hire plan” refers to a specific employment pattern at the CIA. Young people join, complete training, stumble through at most one overseas tour (she was in Western Europe), and then depart, padding their resumes with references to time at CIA and claims they were out on the street doing dangerous work in the shadows when, in truth, they spent all their time in the office on their computers.
Both her male and female colleagues referred to her as “the newspaper clipper girl.” It’s a derogatory comment intended to imply that Spanberger acquired essentially no classified intelligence and handled no valuable sources. She attempted to pass off open-source information readily available in the local press as intel to give Headquarters and her superiors the impression that she was doing something of importance.
Many people who have known her and worked with her refer to her as somewhat vacuous/hollow, which one might think would be the perfect resume for a politician.”
I doubt that Spanberger is really horrified that illegal border crossing is considered a crime or that she is really okay with men (i.e trans) competing against women. She has two teen-age daughters and one pre-teen daughter.
Whether she was an effective CIA agent or not (based on Recargador1’s post), she is likely to be a good liar. After seeing the harm that the intelligence community has done to the U.S. political process over the last decade, I would NEVER vote for someone that worked for any of any intelligence agencies, no matter whether they ran as a D or R.
Read my lips — no new taxes.
As far as I know he never worked for the CIA, unless you call a stint as director to be “working for” it. He was an outside director imposed on it, like Kash Patel.
It’s horrifying that anything illegal is criminal!
That’s right up there with mostly peaceful protests.
She’s correct.
Rather than a criminal act, it should be considered an invasion or act of war, and thus meriting deadly force upon crossing.
No courts, no judges, no kidding.
Where does your tiny mind see breaking the law start?
This is just pandering to her base that think borders should be demolished and there should be no countries at all. Just elitist little gangs that control little areas and impose their version of justice based on identity politics. You know utopia and all that for antifa types. Just imagine super violent utopia, and you got the picture, or you can just image what it’s like to live in gaza under hamas; same difference; just less islam and more transgender. Yup that Spanberger she’s just your typical two faced politician that wants to sound cool and appeal to the stupidity of the anti ICE “no kings(except for our elitist assholes like Obama and AOC we can totally worship them)” crowd.
Nothing more dangerous than an imbecillic psychopath…and our country is filled with them.