Speech #1140041720

Friends and family mourned her death and laid her to rest late last week. Kate Steinle should be with us today. Her death is a result of weak immigration policies. an insecure border. and a lack of will to enforce the law. Her alleged killer was deported five times and has a rap sheet that dates back to 1991. Despite his criminal background. San Franciscos sanctuary policy allowed this man to walk the streets. Today we are learning that there are thousands of detainers placed each year on undocumented immigrants by Federal officials. but these detainers go ignored. Detainers are requests to another law enforcement entity that it wants to take custody of a person. The Federal Government will ask. for instance. a State or local jurisdiction to hold an individual for 48 hours until the Federal Government can assume custody. According to government documents provided by the Center for Immigration Studies. between January and September of 2014. there were 8.811 declined detainers in 276 counties in 43 States. including the District of Columbia. Of the 8.811 declined detainers. 62 percent of them were associated with over 5.000 individuals who were previously charged. convicted of a crime or presented some other public safety concern. And nearly 1.900 of the released offenders were arrested for another crime once they were released by the sanctuary jurisdiction. This is very disturbingnot only to me but to most Americans. There is no good rationale for noncooperation between Federal officials and State and local law enforcement. Public safety is put at risk when State and local officials provide sanctuary to lawbreaking immigrants just to make some political point. But San Francisco isnt the only one to shoulder blame here. The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to law enforcement in this area. even releasing thousands of criminal aliens on its own. many of whom have gone on to commit serious crimeseven murder. They have also turned a blind eye to sanctuary cities. all while challenging States to take a more aggressive approach to immigration and enforcing immigration laws. That is why I wrote to Attorney General Lynch and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson just last week. I urged them to take control of the situation so that detainers are not ignored and undocumented individuals are safely transferred to Federal custody and put into deportation proceedings. I implored them to take a more direct role in this matter. This administration needs to stop turning a blind eye to State and local jurisdictions that thumb their nose at the law and harbor criminals who are evading immigration authorities. But this isnt a new issue for this administration. I wrote to thenSecretary Napolitano in 2011 and asked her to intervene in Cook County. IL. another sanctuary jurisdiction. I wrote to her again. along with thenAttorney General Holder. about sanctuary cities in January of 2012. They failed to do anything at the time. In fact. since then. administration officials have made it clear that detainers did not have to be honored.