To explain the unexplainable, a saying caught on generations ago: “It must be the water.”
Following the killing of Kathryn Steinle in the sanctuary city of San Francisco by an illegal immigrant felon, one might reasonably think lawmakers would thoughtfully consider the life and death results of their aiding and abetting illegal immigrant felons traipsing through the streets.
The killer, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, is a five-time catch-and-release illegal immigrant convicted of seven felonies. Really. Seven felonies.
In fact, he would have been in jail and Kathryn would still be alive today were San Francisco not a sanctuary city.
In March of last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) formally requested that Sanchez be kept in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up for an outstanding drug warrant.
The geniuses who govern San Francisco decided to limit cooperation with ICE to whatever extent they need to avoid losing unsightly federal lawsuits. As a result, they chose not to honor what is known in legal terms as the federal “detainer” and released Sanchez.
Kathryn is dead.
The response from West Coast liberals to East Coast liberals is bizarre.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, a body so intellectually lacking they recently voted to propose voting rights for 16-year-olds, have on the docket a resolution to prohibit local law enforcement from responding, except in very limited cases, to requests from federal immigration officials for an inmate’s personal information or release date.
After all, the liberal Democrats recklessly ponder, why should federal authorities have any information about criminals being released from jail?
2,900 miles away, Democrat State Senator Bryan Townsend has sponsored a bill that would make Delaware the nation’s first sanctuary state.
This, after Juan Leonardo Quintero, an illegal immigrant arrested for killing a Houston police officer ten years ago, confessed in February that he used sanctuary cities laws to evade authorities.
The grotesque irony is that Quintero was deported for “indecency with a child,” while the officer he murdered, Rodney Johnson, received a commendation for valor for pulling several children from a burning building.
Without sanctuary laws, federal authorities would not be so thwarted in their dangerous jobs to capture and prosecute these criminals.
These laws are not protecting the innocent, hardworking people risking their lives to come to America for the promise of a better life.
These laws are not protecting the young illegal immigrants who become victims of the underground sex trade.
These laws are protecting the criminals.
A report last fall from the Center for Immigrant Studies reveals hundreds of sanctuary cities nationwide released thousands of criminal illegal aliens from jail rather than turn them over to federal authorities for deportation.
In less than a year 340 sanctuary cities, counties and states around the U.S. released 9,295 alien offenders
The nonpartisan organization Judicial Watch confirmed, “Of the illegal immigrants released into unsuspecting communities, 58 percent had prior felony charges or convictions and 37 percent had serious prior misdemeanor charges, the CIS probe found. An astounding 2,320 of the freed offenders were subsequently arrested within the eight-month time period studied for new crimes.”
If our lawmakers know thousands of illegal immigrants are being released and then arrested again for committing more crimes, we must ask if these lawmakers are ignorant of the facts or just don’t care.
We should also blame ourselves, the voters, for electing them out of our own ignorance.
The sanctuary concept is that illegal immigrants would be more likely to communicate with local police and fire fighters in times of need if they know they won’t be deported.
The consequences are crime and death.
Wouldn’t it be more helpful to law abiding citizens to pass laws overriding these sanctuary city laws and require states and municipalities to cooperate with ICE and federal agencies?
Whatever these leftwing Democrats are drinking during working hours, it might not be water.
Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL