Sanctuary Policy

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, just 12 days ago, Kate Steinle was walking along Pier 14 in San Francisco with her father when she was shot by an individual in this country illegally. At the age of 32--a very young age--her life was taken. Friends and family mourned her death and laid her to rest late last week.

Kate Steinle should be with us today. Her death is a result of weak immigration policies, an insecure border, and a lack of will to enforce the law. Her alleged killer was deported five times and has a rap sheet that dates back to 1991. Despite his criminal background, San Francisco's sanctuary policy allowed this man to walk the streets.

Today we are learning that there are thousands of detainers placed each year on undocumented immigrants by Federal officials, but these detainers go ignored.

Detainers are requests to another law enforcement entity that it wants to take custody of a person. The Federal Government will ask, for instance, a State or local jurisdiction to hold an individual for 48 hours until the Federal Government can assume custody.

According to government documents provided by the Center for Immigration Studies, between January and September of 2014, there were 8,811 declined detainers in 276 counties in 43 States, including the District of Columbia. Of the 8,811 declined detainers, 62 percent of them were associated with over 5,000 individuals who were previously charged, convicted of a crime or presented some other public safety concern. And nearly 1,900 of the released offenders were arrested for another crime once they were released by the sanctuary jurisdiction.

This is very disturbing--not only to me but to most Americans. There is no good rationale for noncooperation between Federal officials and State and local law enforcement. Public safety is put at risk when State and local officials provide sanctuary to lawbreaking immigrants just to make some political point.

But San Francisco isn't the only one to shoulder blame here. The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to law enforcement in this area, even releasing thousands of criminal aliens on its own, many of whom have gone on to commit serious crimes--even murder. They have also turned a blind eye to sanctuary cities, all while challenging States to take a more aggressive approach to immigration and enforcing immigration laws.

That is why I wrote to Attorney General Lynch and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Johnson just last week. I urged them to take control of the situation so that detainers are not ignored and undocumented individuals are safely transferred to Federal custody and put into deportation proceedings. I implored them to take a more direct role in this matter.

This administration needs to stop turning a blind eye to State and local jurisdictions that thumb their nose at the law and harbor criminals who are evading immigration authorities.

But this isn't a new issue for this administration. I wrote to then-Secretary Napolitano in 2011 and asked her to intervene in Cook County, IL, another sanctuary jurisdiction. I wrote to her again, along with then-Attorney General Holder, about sanctuary cities in January of 2012. They failed to do anything at the time. In fact, since then, administration officials have made it clear that detainers did not have to be honored.

The man charged with the murder of Kate Steinle told officials that he sought refuge and moved to San Francisco precisely because of its sanctuary policy.

This is a tipping point, however. There are many other victims we need to remember.

That is why, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I plan to hold a hearing on the President's immigration policies and the tragic effect they are having on Americans. I have invited the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to testify. Before they testify, I plan to have relatives of victims present to tell Congress how their loved ones and how their lives have been forever changed because of criminal aliens. This hearing will take place next Tuesday.

This is far too important an issue to go unresolved. The heartbreaking death of Kate Steinle at the hands of a criminal alien in the country illegally underscores the need for swift and decisive action to prevent further tragedies of this nature.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source