“It’s unbelievable to see so many innocent Americans that have been killed by undocumented immigrant felons in the recent years”, said Jim Steinle, who traveled from Pleasanton with his wife, Liz Sullivan, to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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His daughter, Kathryn Steinle, 32, was killed July 1, allegedly by Mexican illegal immigrant Francisco Sanchez. The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant who had been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies, has pleaded not guilty in her murder.
Steinle’s death highlighted a longstanding “sanctuary city” policy in San Francisco, one of several hundred U.S. municipalities that limit assistance to federal immigration authorities.
Vitter said there’s “no consequences now, no teeth now, nothing happens”, when cities like San Francisco and New Orleans refuse to notify Immigration and Enforcement it is about to release someone that the federal agency had requested by detained for serious immigration violations. Illegal immigrants, including the ones who are hardened criminals, can find haven from federal law enforcement if they take up residence in these cities.
Immigrant advocates fear that the Senate hearing could spark “reactionary policy proposals” focused on enforcement-only approaches to overshadow bigger policies that seek to safeguard public safety.
At the hearing, Jim Steinle said that his daughter’s death was a “self-inflicted wound” that occurred due to “disjointed laws and basic incompetence on many levels”.
“I feel strongly that some legislation should be discussed, enacted and changed to take these undocumented immigrants off ours streets”, he testified.
Among the funding Grassley’s bill threatens to withhold are grants related to law enforcement that are distributed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was San Francisco’s mayor when the original sanctuary ordinance was adopted, has criticized how officials in her home city have handled it. She said more than 66,000 undocumented immigrants, including people convicted of violent crimes, were released by ICE between 2013 and 2014. Real lives are at stake. “Kate had a special soul, a kind and giving heart, the most contagious laugh and a smile that would light up a room”, he said.
“Enforcing the immigration laws of the United States is not a voluntary or trivial matter”, Grassley said.
East Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell, who knew Steinle’s brother, has reached out to the Steinle family and says he plans to work to prevent tragedies like Steinle’s death from happening in the future. “Things can not continue this way”, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said Tuesday.
For example, Kate’s Law would create a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for anyone caught illegally entering the United States a second time.
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Now Congress is acting to balance the injustice, not just with the Kate’s Law hearings in the Senate to end the revolving door of deportation that Sanchez benefited from, but also in the House, where hearings are to be held Thursday on defunding sanctuary cities that thumb their nose at federal law. “If President Obama had the courage of his convictions, he would come and look into the eyes of the men and women who’ve lost their sons, their daughters, their mothers, their sisters, their brothers – and the administration would stop releasing murders and rapists”.
