The term “sanctuary cities” hit the mainstream in a big way this summer after a woman named Kathryn Steinle was fatally shot in San Francisco, allegedly by a man who’d been deported multiple times.
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Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a Republican-backed bill that would crack down on so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to withhold funds to local governments that don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Menendez, a Democrat from Paramus and son of Cuban immigrants, said that “anti-immigrant rhetoric” from presidential candidates “is unacceptable, deplorable and should be renounced by every American”. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, criticized the sheriff, saying suspect Juan Francisco Sanchez-Lopez should have been detained.
Spokesmam Josh Earnest also complained that “this is something that the United States Congress had the opportunity to fix in the context of comprehensive immigration reform legislation”, but House Republicans blocked the bill.
Sponsors need 60 votes on Tuesday for the measure to advance, meaning Republicans would need at least a half-dozen Democratic senators to join them if all 54 GOP senators vote yes – a potentially heavy lift.
The Senate returned to business Tuesday, that being gridlock over illegal immigration, on a vote that only added to the gathering storms of 2016 elections, including the Senate race in Missouri.
I’ve lived in the Bay Area long enough to appreciate why San Francisco passed sanctuary city ordinances early on; the idea was to encourage undocumented immigrants to report violent and serious crimes to the police.
“Thank you to Mr. Trump for getting a message out about the nation in two minutes that … families like my own have been trying to say for five to six years”, said the mother, Laura Wilkerson. The Board stated that local law enforcement will not be required to notify federal authorities of the Immigration Customs and Enforcement know of the release of unauthorized immigrants.
The bill is co-sponsored by several Republicans, including presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Sanctuary cities and the illegal reentry offenders that they harbor are a threat to the safety of the American people. It purports to tell local police departments how to guarantee the public safety of their jurisdiction.
But a few conservatives have floated a hardball strategy that would attach the sanctuary-city funding to a must-pass piece of legislation, potentially raising the specter of a showdown that could lead to a government shutdown.
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According to Toomey, during an eight-month period previous year, sanctuary cities across the country released thousands of illegal immigrants. “But it was an effort to actually smear the sheriff”, he said. “The administration has put in place new enforcement priorities that accomplish this important law enforcement goal by focusing limited resources on the worst offenders – national security threats, convicted criminals, gang members, and recent border crossers”, the statement said.
