The White House warned Congress on Tuesday that President Obama would veto pending Senate legislation that would strip federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities.”
Sanctuary cities came under scrutiny this summer when a San Francisco woman, Kate Steinle, was murdered by a convicted felon who was supposed to be deported, and had been several times before. San Francisco, like more than 200 other municipalities, refuses to comply with federal immigration laws that require deportation of illegal aliens such as Steinle’s killer.
An illegal immigrant, Francisco Sanchez, was a convicted felon but was released from custody by law enforcement in San Francisco in April, despite a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement order to hold him so he could again be deported. He has been charged with killing the 32-year-old Steinle.
But the White House mostly based its opposition to the Senate bill on the idea that it is not a comprehensive immigration bill favored by Democrats. “This bill fails to offer comprehensive reforms needed to fix the nation’s broken immigration laws and undermines current administration efforts to remove the most dangerous convicted criminals and to work collaboratively with state and local law enforcement agencies,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement of official policy issued Tuesday morning.
OMB also said officials oppose the specifics of the bill, which they said would lead to “mistrust” between federal and local law enforcement.
“The bill would also essentially turn state and local law enforcement into federal immigration law enforcement officials, in certain circumstances,” it said. “The administration believes that these provisions would lead to mistrust between communities and State and local law enforcement agencies; undermine the ability of law enforcement to keep communities safe across the country; and impede our efforts to safely, fairly, and effectively enforce the Nation’s immigration laws.”
The White House said the Obama administration’s policy is to focus on “the most significant public-safety threats,” but acknowledged that requires the active participation of state and local governments. “The administration has put in place new enforcement priorities that accomplish this important law enforcement goal by focusing limited resources on the worst offenders – national security threats, convicted criminals, gang members, and recent border crossers,” the statement said. “The effectiveness of these new priorities depends on collaboration between federal, state, and local law enforcement.”
Senate Democrats themselves are in a position to beat back the legislation Tuesday afternoon, when a procedural vote is scheduled. The Senate will need to find 60 votes to advance the bill, but most or all of the Senate’s 46 Democrats are expected to vote against it. The Senate bill, like an unsuccessful House bill this summer that would have denied sanctuary cities federal law enforcement grants, is in response to Steinle’s shooting death on July 1.
