NPR
By Robert Siegel
July 7, 2015
A
fatal shooting in San Francisco has brought scrutiny to that city's
status as a self-declared sanctuary city for immigrants. Juan Francisco
Lopez-Sanchez - who's used
other names - admitted in a local television interview to shooting
32-year-old Kate Steinle. He claimed it was an accident. Kate Steinle
was walking on the city's Pier 14 with her father. Lopez-Sanchez was in
court today charged with murder. He has committed
a string of felonies in the U.S., mostly drug-related, and he's been
deported to his native Mexico five times, each time managing to get back
into the country. Until this spring, he was in federal custody,
detained by ICE - Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
ICE sent him to the San Francisco sheriff because of a 20-year-old drug
case. When the DA declined to prosecute that charge, ICE wanted him
back, but San Francisco set him free.
Lee Romney is covering this story for The Los Angeles Times and joins us to tell us more about it.
Has anyone explained how Lopez-Sanchez managed to get back into the U.S. five times after being deported?
LEE
ROMNEY: Well, there's a little bit of information on that. He crossed
many times. It's not clear exactly how, but at least a few times, it
seems like he crossed through
ports of entry. And so their border is certainly porous, and that's an
issue that is being raised now in response to this case. You know, some
people who have been strong critics of immigration law say, you know,
it's not exactly the sheriff's fault or San
Francisco's fault when there are, you know, state laws and some legal
concerns. But why is he able to keep crossing over and over and over
again?
SIEGEL:
The reasoning here is that you encourage immigrant communities to call
the police when there's trouble. They won't do it if they suspect that
immigration will
get involved and throw out somebody who's here illegally. I assume if
one supports a law like that, this case is your worst nightmare -
somebody who's in the country because of the sanctuary city status is
now charged with murder?
ROMNEY:
That's correct. It goes beyond sanctuary city, even though sanctuary
city is sort of a state of mind for San Francisco. There are other sort
of legal questions
about complying with ICE holds or detainers. Either it's the question
of the cost to local jurisdictions because they're not reimbursed, and
then there are constitutional questions that have emerged. In April of
2014, there was a federal court ruling in Oregon
where a woman who was held beyond her release date sued and a federal
judge determined that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated, so
the county was actually held liable. And once that happened, even more
jurisdictions started to kind of hold back
on complying and have been trying not to hold people beyond their
release dates out of fear of litigation.
SIEGEL: What have local political figures said about this in the past week?
ROMNEY:
Well, Mayor Ed Lee has come out expressing concern. He signed the Due
Process for All ordinance in 2013, but he and the police chief had at
first been against
it. He had threatened to veto it. And it was strengthened to include
some discretion, you know, in these cases that involve more serious
crimes. The fact is that even though this guy has an enormous rap sheet
and he has a lot of felony convictions, they were
drug-related or for criminal re-entry into the United States after
deportation, so he was not what is considered to be a violent felon.
SIEGEL: Lee Romney covers Northern California for The Los Angeles Times and spoke to us from San Francisco.
Thanks for talking with us.
ROMNEY: Thank you.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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