Speech #1140103592

On July 1. 2015. as Jim Steinle was walking on a pier in San Francisco with his daughter Kate. the gunman opened fire. shot Kate. and she bled to death in her fathers arms. Her last words were "Help me. dad." As outrageous as this is. one of the aspects that is particularly maddening about this is that the shooter never should have been on the pier that day. The shooter was an illegal immigrant. He had been convicted of seven felonies and had been deported five times. But what is truly maddening is that 3 months prior to his murdering Kate Steinle. he was held in the custody of the San Francisco Police Department. They had him. and when Federal immigration officials learned that the San Francisco police had this guy. they asked them to hold him until they could get someone there because they knew he was here illegally. They knew his background. they knew how dangerous he was. and they wanted to deport him. What did the San Francisco police do? They refused. They did not cooperate with the Federal immigration officials. and instead they released him onto the streets of San Francisco. Why would the San Francisco Police Department do a thing like that? Why in the world would they do a thing like that with a seventime convicted felon. fivetime deported person whom Federal immigration officials were asking them to detain? They did it because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. That means it is the legal policy of the city of San Francisco to forbid their own police department from cooperatingfrom even cooperatingwith Federal immigration officials. Even when the police would like to. they cant. It is against the law in San Francisco. So think about that. Even when President Obamas administration and the local police are in complete agreement that this person is dangerous and they want to work together. they want to remove this person and the threat he poses to their community in a sanctuary city. the local politicians override that and they decide it would be illegal for the local police to cooperate. So the San Francisco police had no choice. They were forced by their own city government to release the man who would go on to kill Kate Steinle. If Federal officials had called about almost any other crimeif it had been about bank robbery. a trademark violation. car theftit would have been perfectly legal for the San Francisco Police Department to cooperate with the Federal authorities. But because this involved an illegal immigrant. the San Francisco Police Departments hands were tied. They were forced to release Kate Steinles eventual killer. As the father of three young kids. I cant even imagine what Jim Steinle and his wife have endured and what they are going to go through this Friday. Sadly. the Steinles are not alone. According to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo. during an 8month period in 2014. sanctuary jurisdictionscities and counties and towns that have chosen to be sanctuarieshave released 8.000 immigrants during this period in 2014. and 1.800 of those released were later arrested for new criminal acts. including two cities that released individuals who had been arrested for sexual abuse of children. Not surprisingly. these individuals were arrested yet again for sexually molesting additional children because that is what these monsters do. Lets be clear. This is not about immigration. This is really not about immigration. The vast majority of immigrants in this country would never commit a heinous crime against anybody. but any large group of individuals is going to have some bad actors. With roughly 11 million people here illegally. among them there are absolutely violent criminals. It is completely unavoidable. It makes absolutely no sense to insulate those violent criminals from capture by law enforcement. I should point out that the dangers posed by these sanctuary city laws are not limited to domestic crimes. as appalling as they are. Obviously. the sexual abuse of children and murder are more than sufficient reason to make sure we are not conferring a special benefit on these people. But the fact is. sanctuary cities are impeding our ability to prosecute the war against terrorists. I will give a case in point. Last month. President Obamas Secretary of Homeland Security. Secretary Johnson. took a trip to Philadelphia with a modest request. because Philadelphia has a very extreme and radical sanctuary city policy. So President Obamas Homeland Security Secretary went to Philadelphia and asked Mayor Kenney of Philadelphia to make very narrow exceptions to the sanctuary city policy of Philadelphia. Specifically. he was asking that the Philadelphia Police Department be permitted to cooperatejust sharing information is what they were asking forwith the DHS if they were dealing with a suspected terrorist or someone who had been convicted of a violent felony or someone who had been convicted of a gangrelated offense. Just those cases. Just those. Mayor Kenney refused. The city refused and made no change whatsoever to their sanctuary city status. So as we gather this evening. the Philadelphia Police Department is absolutely forbidden from cooperating with Federal officials unless the Federal officials can prove that the person in question has already been convicted of a violent felony and they have a warrant for the arrest. which. of course. since the police are not allowed to even communicate with the Federal officials. how would they know to seek an arrest warrant? The fact is. none of this makes any sense. Imagine the Department of Homeland Security calling the Philadelphia Police Department and complaining that they discovered that the city has in custody an illegal immigrant who the FBI suspects is plotting a terrorist attack. So the Department of Homeland Security asks the Philadelphia police for information about this guywhen did they pick him up. did he have other people with him. who were they. what were they doing. when are they going to release him. There is a lot of information they might like to have. And they might say: Hold this guy until we get there in the morning so we can interrogate him and begin deportation proceedings. That would be a reasonable request from the Department of Homeland Security. but under the current sanctuary city policy of Philadelphia. the Philadelphia police have no choicetheir response has to be and is "Come back after the crime has been committed. Come back after he has committed his terrorist offense. and then come back with a warrant. and then we can cooperate with you." Sometimes I wonder if we have learned anything after 9/11. after the Boston Marathon bombing. after the San Bernardino murders. and after this horrendous massacre in Orlando. When are we going to start taking this threat seriously?