On Wednesday, The Washington Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee fact-checked Donald Trump’s contention that Mexican illegal immigrants were “people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Naturally, based on meager evidence at best, the Post gave Trump’s statements its lowest truth rating: Four Pinocchios.
Feinstein is also using the letter to promote Obama’s November 2014 executive action on immigration–action that gives effective amnesty to millions of foreign nationals illegally present in the United States. Feinstein has been a strong proponent of “sanctuary city” policies–where local authorities do not enforce federal immigration laws and regulations–and she instituted a sanctuary city policy in San Francisco in 1985.
Lopez-Sanchez told the local ABC News affiliate in a jailhouse interview that he chose to come to San Francisco specifically for its sanctuary city policies.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) submitted a detainer request for Lopez-Sanchez, but the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department ignored it. San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has said he would have honored it if it were a warrant or court order.
Feinstein has now proposed that San Francisco participate in ICE’s Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) under Obama’s executive action on immigration. She cites a recent Los Angeles Board of Supervisors’ formal resolution urging the L.A. Sheriff’s department’s cooperation with a trial of the PEP program, though Supervisor Hilda Solis suggested that if the program poses problems, they “can always opt out,” the L.A. Times reported.
However, Californians who have lost loved ones to the actions of illegal aliens have spoken out at L.A. BOS hearings with concern over the instituting of PEP on a trial basis while at the same time eliminating a program known as 287(g). In addition, the Secure Communities program, which existed before Obama’s executive actions, had crosschecked all inmate fingerprints to determine whether they were in the country illegally. Progressive immigration activists relentlessly criticized the program, because it led to deportations.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors specifically voted to deny cooperation with immigration officials, and Sheriff Mirkarimi heralded his department’s lack of cooperation with them.
The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Republican California State Senator Jeff Stone has introduced legislation to revise the 2013 Trust Act. The Trust Act gave cities leeway to deny cooperation with immigration officials.
In addition, the San Francisco police union has posted its criticism of the city’s sanctuary city policies on Facebook: “Bottom line is a young innocent woman has been murdered in cold blood, in front of her father, by a 5 time deported illegal alien drug dealer. He is an ILLEGAL ALIEN not an undocumented immigrant and if he was where he belonged (Mexico) this innocent victim would still be alive.”
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