White House threatens to veto House GOP immigration bill

He said testimony from Steinle’s father to a Senate committee on Tuesday during a hearing on sanctuary cities was “very emotional” and “powerful”. “It is quite literally life and death”.

San Francisco is a sanctuary city, and chose not to detain the man suspected of killing Steinle despite being asked by federal immigration officials to do so, as the man had been deported multiple times before.

First lobbyists erased any distinction between immigrants here legally and those here illegally – with the argument that most people here illegally are otherwise law-abiding residents. OK. Because they chose to release those offenders, there is a possibility they could lose funding if the bill passes. “It’s meant to punish cities that don’t embrace the views of anti-immigrant extremists”.

The White House has said President Barack Obama would veto the bill on the grounds that it would support police checking immigration status “from any person at any time for any reason”.

A number of law enforcement organizations, civil rights groups, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have pushed back on efforts to crack down on “sanctuary cities“, arguing that new policies would be counterproductive by undermining the trust between local law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

Today, San Francisco is one of more than 200 jurisdictions that have stopped fully honoring detainers. She urged lawmakers to crackdown on sanctuary city policies. But every reader knows what happened next: A bullet struck Kathryn Steinle, 32, as she walked arm in arm with her father.

“Our family realized the complexity of immigration laws; however we feel strongly that legislation should be discussed, enacted or changed to take these undocumented immigrant felons off our streets for good”, Steinle said at the hearing.

The comments echoed the years-long national debate over immigration, but this latest chapter comes at a moment when immigration has become a hot-button issue on the presidential campaign trail, thanks to Trump’s provocative claims about Mexican immigrants being “rapists” and “criminals“.

No wonder wild-card candidates like Donald Trump are leading in the polls. The only question is whether or not there are enough Democrats in Congress who have the basic integrity to join their Republican counterparts to bring this chaos under control. “Cities do not have the right to ignore federal laws that require them to incarcerate people who commit serious felonies”. In the recent legislative session, state Senator Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), sponsored a similar bill that would ban sanctuary cities in Texas altogether, however the bill died.

Earnest said Wednesday the comprehensive immigration reform proposal from 2013 increased penalties for illegal immigrants who were previously deported, and said Republicans in the House opposed it.

But Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, told the House judiciary committee