Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the
gentleman from Colorado's amendment. When Kate Steinle was murdered, I was the new chairman of this
subcommittee, and I swore that I would find a way to cut off Federal
funding to these sanctuary cities. That young lady's murder could have
been prevented had the city of San Francisco simply cooperated with
Federal immigration authorities and handed that criminal over to be
deported immediately. That is all we are talking about here. With the previous administration, Attorney General Lynch, I met with
her as the CFO, so to speak, of the DOJ. I used the power of the purse
that the Congress was entrusted with by the Founders of our
constituents to persuade the previous Attorney General to adopt
precisely the policy that Mr. Buck is attempting to make sure that we
continue to follow. I know, under Attorney General Sessions' leadership, sanctuary cities
are not going to receive Federal money. That policy was first put in
place last summer. At my insistence, current guidelines in the
Department of Justice grant policies are that a local law enforcement
agency has to certify that they are cooperating 100 percent of the time
with Federal immigration authorities about individuals in local jails
or State prisons. That is all this is. If a State prison or local jail is housing someone who was in the
country illegally when they committed the crime and were sentenced,
before they are released, current Department of Justice policy adopted
last summer, being enforced today by Attorney General Sessions, says
you have to tell Federal authorities you are about to release this
person so they can be immediately deported. That is common sense. It
protects public safety, and it is a wise use of our tax dollars.
Keywords matched
immigration deported sanctuary cities