“Congress can do its part to help end [sanctuary city] policies by passing the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act and Kate’s Law, two bills that would make all Americans safer.”
Congress must pass Kate’s Law and make America safer
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Fox News
June 28, 2017
Two years ago this week, a young woman named Kate Steinle was murdered in cold blood – shot in the back as she walked with her father on a tourist pier in San Francisco.
The man charged with her murder, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was a seven-time felon and an illegal alien who had been deported five times. And yet he walked the streets of an American city freely.
Lopez-Sanchez should never have been on that pier with Kate. He should have been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And he would have been if San Francisco had only notified ICE of his release from the city’s custody, as ICE had requested.
But San Francisco refused to do so. The city continues to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. In fact, it’s city policy.
That’s because San Francisco is one of about 300 cities which openly refuse to turn over criminal illegal aliens to federal law enforcement.
These cities protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes, rather than their law-abiding residents. These jurisdictions refuse to provide ICE with information about removable illegal aliens who are in their custody and have committed a crime or are suspected of having committed a crime.
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Congress can do its part to help end these policies by passing the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act and Kate’s Law, two bills that would make all Americans safer.
The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act would withhold certain federal grant money from jurisdictions that prohibit their officers from cooperating with ICE. Under this bill, American taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize jurisdictions whose policies effectively work to make us less safe.
The bill also contains a provision—known as Sarah and Grant’s law – which would ensure that illegal aliens are detained pending their removal proceedings. This provision was named after Sarah Root, a recent college graduate, who was killed by an illegal alien charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, and Grant Ronnebeck, who was killed by an illegal alien – a self-proclaimed member of the Sinaloa cartel – who had been released on bail pending his removal proceeding.
Congress can also make it harder for criminal aliens to repeatedly reenter the United States. Kate’s Law would do that by increasing the penalties for deported aliens who return to the United States. We must send a clear message that re-entering after having been previously deported will cease to be a minor matter, but will result in prison and deportation.
These policies make all of us less safe by giving shelter to dangerous criminals. Congress can take a major step for public safety by passing these two critical pieces of legislation.
