On July 1, 2015, Kathryn Steinle was murdered in San Francisco. Her murderer was Francisco Sanchez, an illegal alien from Mexico, who claimed to have found the gun. Later it was determined that gun had been stolen from a federal agent’s car. Mr. Sanchez had been previously deported from the United States five times and had several felony convictions. In March 2015, federal authorities had turned Mr. Sanchez over to San Francisco authorities due to an outstanding drug warrant.
The Wikipedia page describing the incident explains:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer for Sanchez requesting that he be kept in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up. As a sanctuary city, however, which limits cooperation with ICE only when active charges against the immigrant are identified, San Francisco did not honor the detainer and released him since they found no active warrant for his arrest.[19] San Francisco officials transported Sanchez to San Francisco County Jail on March 26, 2015 to face a 20-year-old felony charge of selling and possessing marijuana after Sanchez completed his latest prison term in San Bernardino County for entering in the country without the proper documents.[13] He was released from San Francisco County Jail on April 15, and had no outstanding warrants or judicial warrants, as confirmed by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department.[17]
Essentially, because San Francisco is a sanctuary city, Mr. Sanchez was let out of jail and killed Kathryn Steinle with a gun he had no right to possess. There are two things to pay close attention to here–tighter gun control laws would not have prevented Mr. Sanchez from having the gun–it was stolen, and had America enforced its border, Mr. Sanchez would not have been in the country. Better border security and better policies for deporting illegal immigrants would have saved Ms. Steinle’s life.
The Washington Times posted an article today about the Obama Administration’s response to the shooting of Kathryn Steinle.
The article reports:
The Senate was prepared to hold a test vote later Tuesday on the sanctuary city bill, which would strip some federal grant money from locales that refuse to cooperate with deportation agents. The bill would also clarify that local police can legally hold an illegal immigrant based on a request from a federal agent. Several court cases have called that into question.
The Obama Administration has a different solution:
The White House on Tuesday vowed to veto a bill designed to prevent sanctuary city deaths like the July killing of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, saying the solution is to legalize illegal immigrants, not to force cities and counties to cooperate in deporting them.
Legalizing Mr. Sanchez would not have accomplished anything, just as making it impossible for him to acquire a gun legally accomplished nothing. I am sure Mr. Sanchez would not have been able to pass a background check for a gun license, so what would stronger gun laws have accomplished? What would making Mr. Sanchez a citizen accomplished? He was in no danger of being deported–he was in a sanctuary city.
Common sense should rule on this issue–if an illegal alien commits an additional crime in America (he has already committed one crime–he is here illegally), he should immediately be sent home, and our border should be secure enough to keep him from finding his way back in.