The House of Representatives approved H.R.3009,
Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-Calif.) sanctuary cities bill, on Thursday
afternoon, hopefully starting a debate over the Obama Administration's
efforts to severely weaken interior enforcement.
Hunter's
bill would block SCAAP funding (relatively small reimbursements for
jailing illegal aliens) from jurisdictions that refuse to communicate
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or comply with detainer
requests. It would also authorize (not require) the Department of Justice (DOJ) to block grants for local law enforcement.
Earlier
this year, the House approved Rep. Steve King's (R-Iowa) sanctuary
cities amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations
Act that would have blocked SCAAP funding. But it also required
DOJ to block local law enforcement grants. So the Hunter legislation is
a step back from policy that the House has already approved this year.
Furthermore,
the Hunter bill fails to address ICE's own sanctuary policies that have
led to the release of more than 70,000 criminal aliens onto the
streets. And as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointed out on Tuesday during
his questioning of ICE Director Sarah Saldana, that number only
represents the release of criminal aliens that the agency has put into
deportation proceedings. There were another 68,000 criminal aliens
released in 2013 alone that ICE declined to even put into deportation
hearings.
In
advance of the House vote, NumbersUSA told House Members and the media
that the Hunter bill was an inadequate response to the recent shooting
of Kate Steinle in San Francisco.
Following the
murder of Kate Steinle, there has been unprecedented public outrage over
sanctuary policies, which are expressly designed to prevent the
enforcement of immigration laws. Congress has received a clear mandate
from the American people that it is finally time to stop the release of
criminal aliens onto our streets. NumbersUSA commends all the members of
Congress who responded to that call with targeted legislation to
address certain parts of the criminal alien crisis. The Hunter sanctuary
bill (H.R. 3009) is one such piece of targeted legislation. As the sole
legislative response of Congress to this criminal alien crisis,
however, H.R. 3009 is wholly inadequate.
Defunding sanctuary
jurisdictions certainly should be part of the legislative effort to
prevent more Americans from being victimized by criminal aliens, but
withholding small, discrete Federal grants is not going to stop state,
local, or Federal entities from releasing criminal aliens into our
communities. Moreover, a well-thought-out legislative response should
follow regular order and come from the committee of jurisdiction: the
Judiciary Committee. Sadly, House leadership has decided to bypass the
committee process and ignore the time and work the members of the
Judiciary Committee put into marking up and passing the Davis-Oliver Act
(H.R. 1148). The Davis-Oliver Act, introduced by Chairman Gowdy, would
not only prevent sanctuary jurisdictions from ignoring ICE detainers and
releasing criminal aliens, it would also immunize state and local law
enforcement officers who protect our communities by honoring detainers.
Equally important, it would significantly curtail ICE's practice of
releasing tens of thousands of criminal aliens each year. Had this bill
been enacted in time, Kate Steinle, Grant Ronnebeck, Josh Wilkerson,
Jamiel Shaw, Jr., and thousands of others might be alive today. That is
the kind of response that the American people expect from their elected
representatives.
Our criticism of the weak response was widely reported in the media.
While
the Hunter bill passed easily, 241-to-179, some Members who supported
the legislation showed their agreement with our position, including
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).
Representative
Hunter's bill is an important first step, but there is much more we
will need to do to rebuild immigration enforcement in the United
States.
... Representative Gowdy, chairman of the Immigration and Border
Security Subcommittee, has offered us a way forward to ensure
enforcement of our immigration laws. ... Today, we are making an
important down payment on protecting our constituents, and I appreciate
the Majority Leader's commitment to me that we will take additional
action to ensure compliance with our immigration laws in the future.
-- Rep. Goodlatte
We
believe that the barrage of phone calls and faxes from NumbersUSA
activists this last week is one reason House Leaders made the promise
for more action.
Our
hope is that House Leadership's promise to Rep. Goodlatte and others
comes to fruition, but it'll be our job over the August recess to ensure
that House Leaders actually keep their word.
Yesterday's vote broke mostly along party lines, but five Democrats did side with the Republicans and the rule of law: Reps.
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Ami Bera of California, William Keating of
Massachusetts, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and Henry Cuellar of Texas.
Interestingly, Nine Republicans voted for the Hunter bill after opposing King's amendment
to the CJS appropriations bill. One could speculate that these
pro-amnesty Republicans changed their vote for at least one of two
reasons, both of which were pointed out in our letter to Congress: 1)
the Hunter bill was indeed weaker than the King amendment and 2) the
American people have given Congress a clear mandate to strengthen
interior enforcement.
How
weak has interior enforcement gotten under the Obama Administration? A
new study released yesterday by the Migration Policy Institute concluded
that 87% of illegal aliens living in the United States will be safe
from federal immigration agents.
The
House will break for the month-long August recess at the end of next
week. We have our work cut out for ourselves over that month. We'll need
to keep the pressure on Congress to pass meaningful legislation that
will end the Obama Administration's and nearly 300 sanctuary
jurisdictions' utter disregard for the rule of law and insistence to
protect criminal illegal aliens over the public safety of Americans.
| chris chmielenski |
| Fri, July 24th |
|
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