Politico
By Seung Min Kim
July 14, 2015
Congressional
Republicans are ramping up pressure on President Barack Obama over the
contentious issue of “sanctuary cities” — grilling administration
officials, proposing
a flurry of bills and threatening to block funding for cities that
provide safe harbor to undocumented immigrants.
A
growing chorus of GOP lawmakers, and Democrats such as California Sens.
Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, are mulling a legislative push to
target sanctuary cities
— locations where officials refuse to cooperate with federal
immigration orders.
The
issue has gained political urgency since the death of Kathryn Steinle,
whom authorities say was shot and killed on a San Francisco pier earlier
this month by an immigrant
in the U.S. illegally.
On
Tuesday, the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee voted to block
sanctuary cities from getting certain federal grants as part of a
broader bill funding the Department
of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, key Senate Republicans signaled they
would soon take up sanctuary cities legislation.
And
House Republicans used an oversight hearing Tuesday to repeatedly push
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on the issue, demanding that he
force sanctuary cities
to comply with federal immigration requests.
“You
work for the United States of America,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who
chairs the House panel overseeing immigration, told Johnson. “How in the
hell can a city tell
you no?”
Johnson
rebutted those calls during the testy hearing, which ran nearly four
hours, and the Homeland Security chief also repeatedly defended how the
Obama administration
has carried out immigration laws — dismissing GOP criticism of Obama’s
enforcement record as “fiction.”
“I
do not believe that we should mandate the conduct of state and local
law enforcement through federal legislation,” Johnson said Tuesday. “I
believe that the most effective
way to work with jurisdictions … is through a cooperative effort.”
The
killing of Steinle has galvanized proponents of stricter immigration
laws who say the suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, should have
never been released from custody
and should have been deported to his native Mexico. Lopez-Sanchez, who
pleaded not guilty to the charges last week, had already been removed
from the United States five times and had a lengthy criminal record. The
issue has lit up the 2016 campaign trail,
with GOP presidential contenders using Steinle’s death to press their
case for stricter immigration laws.
Federal
immigration officials had asked the San Francisco sheriff to notify
Immigration and Customs Enforcement once Lopez-Sanchez was released. But
San Francisco is one
of more than 200 jurisdictions nationwide that ignores those requests,
believing they are unconstitutional and breed mistrust between immigrant
communities and police.
GOP
lawmakers have seized on the circumstances of Steinle’s death to strike
back at Obama, arguing that the administration has been too lax in
enforcing immigration laws.
And her killing has spurred a legislative push from many Republicans
and even some Democrats to zero in on sanctuary cities, throwing the
issue of immigration back into the Hill spotlight more than two years
after the Senate passed a comprehensive reform bill
that was ignored by the House.
The
Senate Judiciary Committee is calling on other top Obama administration
officials — Sarah Saldana, the director of ICE, and Leon Rodriguez, the
director of U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services — to appear before the panel next week. And
the committee’s chairman hinted that legislative action could be next.
“The
best I can talk to you right now is, I’m trying to write a bill,” Sen.
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a brief interview Monday. “But there’s a
dozen bills in, so
if we want to do something, there’s plenty that can be done.”
Two
conservative Republicans — Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David
Vitter of Louisiana — had separately proposed amendments to an unrelated
education bill that would
restrict funding for sanctuary cities. Vitter said Tuesday that he
would not push for a vote on his proposal, since Republicans have agreed
to take up the issue in the Judiciary Committee sometime this month.
“If it’s not, I’ll certainly be back,” Vitter said.
Meanwhile,
Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, two key GOP backers of
immigration reform, have proposed a bill that would require federal
immigration authorities
to detain and deport undocumented immigrants who have been arrested or
convicted of serious crimes within 90 days.
Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a 2016 presidential candidate, has legislation that
would force state and local law enforcement officials to comply with ICE
detainers, which are
requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to local law
enforcement to keep an immigrant in custody, even if the immigrant would
otherwise be released. And even liberal senators like Boxer and
Feinstein — a former San Francisco mayor — are discussing
a potential bill that targets sanctuary cities.
“We’re still working on it,” Feinstein said Monday night. “Let me get something that’s right first.”
Republicans
are also eyeing the purse strings. In addition to the House
Appropriations Committee’s vote Tuesday, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) —
who leads the panel overseeing
funding for the Justice Department — asked Attorney General Loretta
Lynch last week to withhold certain DOJ grants from cities unless they
cooperate with federal immigration requests.
“Cities
that refuse to comply with immigration officials and release dangerous
criminals back into our communities put innocent American lives at
risk,” said Rep. Kevin
Yoder (R-Kan.), who wrote the provision the House committee adopted
Tuesday. “If these cities wish to continue to subvert the law, they will
do so without the support of American taxpayers.”
But
much of the focus Tuesday was on the House Judiciary hearing, where
Republicans questioned why federal officials weren’t doing more to force
cities and states to abide
by immigration statutes.
Despite
Johnson’s defense of the administration’s immigration enforcement
history, Gowdy contended that Lopez-Sanchez is “Exhibit A that we must
not have functional control
over the border or he would not have reentered” multiple times.
“It
may have been a sanctuary for that defendant,” Gowdy said, referring to
San Francisco’s policy of not cooperating with federal immigration
requests. “But it sure as
hell was not a sanctuary for a young woman walking with her father.”
Meanwhile,
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) pushed Johnson
to force cities and states to comply with ICE detainers. If cities and
states won’t
comply, the Obama administration should go to court, Goodlatte argued.
“Politely asking for cooperation from sanctuary cities is a fool’s errand,” Goodlatte said Tuesday.
Democrats
are largely urging caution, condemning the killing but denouncing
Republican efforts to toughen up immigration enforcement.
“As
we think about the proper way to respond to this situation, we must
make sure we do not adopt policies that would diminish public safety and
undermine our commitment
to the Constitution and civil liberties,” said Michigan Rep. John
Conyers, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
As
part of his sweeping executive actions on immigration last November,
Obama announced that his administration would scrap Secure Communities, a
controversial fingerprint-sharing
program meant to track down immigrants in the country illegally. GOP
lawmakers had backed Secure Communities, but Obama replaced that with
the so-called Priority Enforcement Program, which the administration
says would better target immigrants who are top
priorities for deportation.
Johnson
said Tuesday that of the 49 biggest jurisdictions, 33 have committed to
cooperating with Homeland Security officials on the new enforcement
program. Five have
said no while 11 others are considering, and Johnson said he has
personally pressed San Francisco officials to participate in the new
program.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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