Speech #1140040498

COTTON. INHOFE. and BOOZMAN. introduced the Michael Davis. Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act. a bill named for two sheriffs deputies in California who were murdered by an illegal alien with an extensive criminal record. and. I thought. three deportations. Talking to the widows of these officers recently. I am told that he may have been deported four timesand had an extensive criminal record. So this bill is a companion to the House bill introduced earlier this year by the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security TREY GOWDY. It is a good bill. Our bill is similar. In addition to enhancing cooperation with States and local law enforcement and eliminating loopholes that allow criminal aliens to obtain immigration benefits. this bill would constitute a clear. strong. and responsible response to sanctuary jurisdictions and other government actions. Specifically. it would withhold Federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions that do not cooperate with the enforcement of Federal immigration laws or do not honor Federal immigration detainers. provide immunity to jurisdictions that honor detainers and hold aliens until ICE can pick them up. and provide a general sense of Congress that "the Department of Homeland Security has probable cause to believe that an alien is inadmissible or deportable when it issues a detainer" for an alien. That would clear up one of the loopholes being cited here to excuse some of these actions. By the way. I believe it is 300 sanctuary cities and counties in the country out of 17.000 or so law enforcement jurisdictions. Some of them are quite large cities: Chicago. San Francisco. Los Angeles. The passage of these sections alone could do more to combat sanctuary jurisdictions and protect the people of those communities and really the country from criminal aliens than what this administration has accomplished in the 7 years or so it has been in office. It is time for Congress to make its first item of business the immediate passage of legislation to cut off Federal law enforcement moneys to sanctuary cities. Not one more parent should lose a son or daughter because American cities are harboring criminals. In any Statelike mine.