House passes pair of immigration bills, but can they pass the Senate?

“Kate’s Law” and “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act” – would up the penalties on undocumented immigrants who attempt to re-enter the country illegally after being deported for crimes and slash funds from cities that protect them. Kate’s Law, which increases penalties for people who reenter the USA after being deported or convicted of a crime, passed 257 to 167, with 24 Democrats joining almost all Republicans in voting yes. It is named for Kate Steinle, who was shot dead in San Francisco in 2015.

Kate’s Law is so named for Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was allegedly shot and killed by a Mexican national in San Francisco, a sanctuary city, almost two years ago.

“You lost the people that you love because our government refused to enforce our nation’s immigration laws and that’s including the existing immigration laws”, Trump told the family members who had joined him in the Cabinet room.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said “Kate’s Law” would not have had an impact on the Steinle case, noting that Steinle was killed in July 2015 by an immigrant who had been mistakenly released by the federal Bureau of Prisons. Opponents of the policy maintain that sanctuary cities make communities less safe and decrease employment prospects for American citizens.

The two bills-Kate’s Law and The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act-will be voted on by Congress later in the week.

Check back for updates on this developing story. But what exactly is Kate’s Law, and how will it change USA immigration law?

The National Fraternal Order of Police this week wrote to House leaders warning that “withholding needed assistance to law enforcement agencies – which have no policymaking role – also hurts public safety efforts”. The term sanctuary city has no legal meaning, however, it is used to describe a city that limits its cooperation with the federal government to enforce immigration law.

The second piece of legislation, the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, targets sanctuary cities that violate federal immigration policy. The sanctuary cities bill could garner even less support, as lawmakers protest the cuts in law enforcement funding.

Representative Mark Walker (R-N.C.) explained the bills after passage of Kate’s Law from the House floor and encouraged his Democratic colleagues to support the legislation. The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had been deported several times but repeatedly re-entered the U.S. Conservative think tank the Cato Institute called it “a waste of federal resources”, saying it would increase the number of nonviolent prisoners without “protecting Americans against serious criminals”. “It is time for these tragedies to end”.

“These crimes committed by illegal immigrant criminals are preventable”, said Ronnebeck.

For immigration hard-liners, Steinle has become the face of victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, an issue President Donald Trump highlighted Wednesday in a White House event with victims’ families.

“For six years, we have been just getting by – cutting resources as the world becomes more risky, asking more and more of those who serve, and putting off the tough choices”, said Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the House committee’s chairman.

If they don’t, the border will never be secure, he said, and the immigrant population in the United States, which already stands at 11-12 million people, will keep growing.

That’s not a surprise, given that the Trump administration has gone beyond targeting immigrants with criminal histories for deportations as well.

If the bills make it through the Senate intact, the President promises to sign them “quickly”, which will hasten a showdown with California, the state that prides itself on being the epicenter of resistance to Trump.