Hearing Wrap Up: Sanctuary Cities – A Threat to Public Safety
Washington, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee held a hearing on “Sanctuary Cities: A Threat to Public Safety.” At the hearing, Jim Steinle, the father of Kate Steinle, testified, as well as Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, Jessica Vaughan, the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, and Dayton Chief of Police Richard Biehl.
Takeaways:
- States and localities that defy federal immigration enforcement efforts needlessly endanger American lives by releasing criminal aliens back into our communities. All too often, these reckless policies result in preventable tragedies, such as the murder of Kate Steinle.
- Immigration policy expert Jessica Vaughan testified that the Obama Administration’s new Priority Enforcement Program – which replaces Secure Communities – explicitly allows local jurisdictions to obstruct federal enforcement orders by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She also testified that Congress must step in to correct this problem by clarifying that ICE detainers are mandatory and implementing sanctions for jurisdictions that do not comply with federal enforcement orders.
- Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones testified that Congress can take legislative action to address many of the problems that face local law enforcement with regards to immigration policy. He stated that ICE detainers should be made mandatory and that ICE should share its resources and databases with local law enforcement, among several other solutions.
- Legislation authored by Immigration and Border Security Chairman Trey Gowdy – H.R. 1148, the Michael Davis, Jr. and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act – is the best legislative solution to crack down on sanctuary cities and end the Obama Administration’s policies that encourage them.
Key Videos:
Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.): “I hope the politicians in San Francisco will explain to you why they thought it was more important to provide a sanctuary to Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez than they did to provide a sanctuary for Kate Steinle. And I hope this Administration will tell you why the Bureau of Prisons released a five-time illegal entrant to a known sanctuary city for a drug charge that wound up being dismissed. And I hope San Francisco will tell you why they released a convicted felon rather than honor the detainer in place or just simply return to him to ICE …For those of us that have daughters, which includes the President, your daughter could have been our daughter.”
Jim Steinle, the father of Kate Steinle: “Kate was beautiful, kind, happy, caring, loving and deep in faith. Kate had a special soul, a kind and giving heart, the most contagious laugh, and a smile that would light up a room. Kate loved to travel, spend time with her friends, and most of all spend time with her family… Due to unjointed laws and basic incompetence on many levels, the U.S. has suffered a self-inflicted wound in the murder of our daughter by the hand of a person that should have never been on the streets in this country.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.): “Wouldn’t it be best to remove unlawful aliens before they commit serious crimes as opposed to simply trusting and hoping that they won’t in fact commit serious crimes? In the case of Mr. Lopez Sanchez, he had committed some drug offenses and he had committed illegally entering the United States; he had not committed murder at that point in time.”
Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas): “Sanctuary cities have increased exponentially under this Administration for one good reason, and that is the Administration has done nothing to discourage municipalities and jurisdictions from becoming sanctuary areas. Many people claim that by being a sanctuary city or area or jurisdiction that is somehow going to encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes … I have never seen one shred of evidence that that is the case.”
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