Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted Tuesday that the administration goofed in releasing an illegal immigrant to sanctuary city San Francisco ahead of a shocking murder earlier this month, but said there’s little the government can do to pressure sanctuary communities to change their minds.
Facing lawmakers for the first time since the slaying of Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old killed while out walking with her father, Mr. Johnson said he’s made personal appeals to San Francisco to rethink its refusal to let police cooperate with federal immigration agents, and will try again in the wake of the killing.
But he declined to criticize sanctuary cities themselves, and told Congress not to try to pass laws forcing cooperation, saying it could conflict with the Constitution, and it won’t win over the hearts of reluctant communities.
“My hope is that jurisdictions like San Francisco — San Francisco County — will cooperate with our new program,” he told the House Judiciary Committee. “I’m making the rounds with a lot of jurisdictions. My deputy secretary and I and other leaders in DHS have been very, very active for the purpose of promoting public safety to get jurisdictions to cooperate with us on this.”
He said several dozen jurisdictions who had previously refused to cooperate have already signed up or signaled interest in working with the new Priority Enforcement Program.
Republicans doubted that asking nicely would work with the five cities and counties that have turned Mr. Johnson down already, and they wondered why he and President Obama didn’t want to get tougher on the recalcitrant ones.
“How in the hell can a city tell you ‘No’?” demanded Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican. “And when a young woman is shot walking with her father, with somebody with this resume, either you got to do something, we got to do something, or maybe we can do it together.”
Steinle’s death has refocused the immigration debate, which, for the last few years, had been won by immigrant rights advocates arguing for more lenient treatment for illegal immigrants, symbolized by the most sympathetic category of the Dreamers, young adult illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Now, Steinle’s slaying — and the suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, deported five times before and out on the streets after San Francisco refused to hold him for pickup by immigration agents — has put attention on victims of illegal immigration.
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