Speech #1140040498

So San Francisco filed a detainer with the Bureau of Prisons. which had this individual in custody. and the Bureau of Prisons dutifullyaccording to. it appears. normal proceduresturned him over to San Francisco for processing of San Franciscos criminal charge. Then. the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. doing its job. filed their detainer with San Francisco in effect saying: San Francisco. when you finish handling this case. he is ours to be deported. Being a sanctuary city. however. San Francisco did not honor it. Notably. within the same 24hour period. across the country in another sanctuary jurisdictionLaredo. TXAngelica Martinez was brutally murdered with a hammer by her husband. Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez. an illegal alien. He had been deported from the United States four times. Local police said this was the third violent encounter between this couple and that Vasquez had also had a previous drivingwhileintoxicated charge and a charge for evading arrest. As a sanctuary city. Laredo refused to even tell the Department of Homeland Security of the arrest and denied Homeland Security the ability to file a detainer with their jurisdiction. They just denied it. These cases. colleagues. highlight the tragic and completely avoidable consequences of sanctuary jurisdiction policies. Indeed. if not for sanctuary cities and the Obama administrations continued destruction in other areas of immigration enforcement. Kate and others surely would be alive today. Her death could have been prevented. but the extreme open borders ideology that rejects even the deportation of criminalsthat is. people who commit crimes other than the crime of entering the country illegallyled to her death. as it has led to the death of many others. Although sanctuary jurisdictions are not a recent development. they have been allowed to flourish under this administration. Let me repeat that. This administration has allowed sanctuary cities to flourish. On a few occasions. officials in the government have complained. once about Chicago. Cook County. but no action was ever taken to pressure Cook County to change. The administration has not only refused to stop cities from acting in this way but has emboldened them with this systematic dismantling of immigration enforcement. In fact. while this administration has taken legal action against State and local jurisdictions that have simply attempted to help the Federal Government enforce our immigration laws. they sued them to block their efforts to enforce the law or help the Federal Government enforce the lawStates and counties which have never attempted to deport people. but they have taken efforts when they capture somebody for a crime or for a DUI and find out they are illegally in the countrythey would like to be able to turn them over to the Federal Government in some fashion so they can be deported. This has been resisted by the Federal Government. unfortunately. In 2010. the Federal Government openly announced it would not undertake any legal action against sanctuary jurisdictions for refusing to cooperate with the enforcement of our immigration laws. Thus. while it had the time and resources to sue States like Arizona and litigate such cases all the way to the Supreme Court. this administration has not spent a dime to take similar actions against sanctuary jurisdictions around the country. and the administration was well aware of the dangers posed by these policies. Former ICE Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Gary Mead said that sanctuary citiesand in particular Cook County. ILwere "an accident waiting to happen." That was obviously a sound prediction. and we have seen the tragic results. Not only has the government failed to stand up to sanctuary jurisdictions. but two days agothe White House is now claiming that if Congress had just passed the Gang of 8 bill. the comprehensive amnesty bill. then this would never have happened. But the Gang of 8 bill the President pushed so hard for would have dramatically increased incidents of criminal alien violence. officially legalizing dangerous offenders while handcuffing immigration officers from doing their jobs. Law enforcement professionals told us the Gang of 8 bill would have undermined the rule of law in America. not strengthened it. These are the people who know. Chris Crane and Ken Palinkas. presidents of the National ICE Council that represents all ICE officers. and the USCIS union. respectivelythese two leaders of these two important organizations issued a statement on behalf of their officersthe key officers who enforce immigration law in America. This is what our Federal law officers had to say about the Presidents idea that the Gang of 8 bill would fix these kinds of problems: The [Gang of Eight] proposal will make Americans less safe and it will ensure more illegal immigrationespecially visa overstaysin the future. It provides legalization for thousands of dangerous criminals while making it more difficult for our officers to identify public safety and national security threats ... They go on to say: The legislation was guided from the beginning by antienforcement special interests and. should it become law. will have the desired effects of these groups: Blocking immigration enforcement.... They go on to say: [It is an] antipublic safety bill and an antilaw enforcement bill. Imagine if the countrys chief law enforcement officerthat is. the President of the United Stateshad spent that year trying to end sanctuary cities and deport criminal aliens and enforce the laws of the United States instead of trying to empower open borders activists and fighting against law enforcement and refusing to enforce whole sections of plain law through his Executive amnesty what could have been done to end unlawfulness in this country and turn this country around. Just to show how deep the disagreement was between the Federal law officers and their supervisorstheir politicallyappointed supervisorsthey actually filed a lawsuit in Federal court contending that their superiors were ordering them to violate their oath to enforce the laws of the United States. They sought relief in the Federal court.