Obama rejects Senate bid to defund ‘sanctuary cities’

San Francisco officials declared Tuesday that the city’s sanctuary policies would remain intact, shutting down critics who blamed the protections for enabling the high profile murder of Kathryn Steinle by an illegal immigrant in July.

The actions involving the nonbinding resolutions sent a symbolic message on the same day that Senate Democrats in Washington blocked legislation pushed largely by Republicans that would punish jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with federal immigration agents. It would block them from receiving certain grants and funds.

The controversial topic of “sanctuary cities” burst onto the national radar with the July death of Kate Steinle, who was fatally shot in San Francisco by a man whom authorities say was in the United States illegally. The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had a felony record and had been deported five times – but despite a federal immigration detainer request, the city sheriff released him once an old marijuana charge was dropped.

Mehlman thinks the Senate should have found a way to pass the bill, even if President Obama meant to veto it.

Describing the bill as “pretty simple”, Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) said “the bill says let’s protect Americans and one of the ways that we do that, is by having cities enforce the federal laws, and having no exception to that”.

“There’s no causal relationship between our sanctuary city policies and the death that occurred on Pier 14 in San Francisco”, Avalos said.

“We are witnessing the most overtly nativist and xenophobic campaign in modern USA history”, Menendez said on Tuesday.

Three Republican presidential candidates – Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Kentucky’s Randy Paul – backed the legislation.

“This vote represents a positive future for undocumented immigrants, non criminals”, said Jaime Martinez of the Cesar Chavez Legacy Foundation, who is pushing for the Sanctuary law.

In a party-line vote, senators voted 54-45 on cloture on a motion to proceed to S. 2146, the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, short of the necessary 60 votes to fulfill the procedural requirement. Well, this vote today will be a moment of clarity. “We can talk all we want about improving public safety in this building but if people in our community don’t trust law enforcement, no level of police staffing is going to make our community safe”.

The idea that cities can create no-go zones for the enforcement of USA immigration laws, our own equivalent of Parisian suburbs where the national law does not run, is freakish. It said the Senate bill undermines its Priority Enforcement Program, which seeks to allow immigration officials to work with local agencies so that they take custody only of immigrants who are enforcement priorities, such as posing a threat to public safety.

Despite the slim chance that a “sanctuaries” bill will become law, the issue is likely to be used by the GOP to attack certain Democrats in the 2016 elections.