Dems loves Sanchez

KathrynSteinle Over the weekend I posted excerpts of news accounts of the murder of Kate Steinle by five-time Mexican deportee at San Francisco’s Pier 14. The murder took place this past Friday. I inferred from the news accounts on Saturday that San Francisco law enforcement’s failure to abide by ICE’s immigration detainer on Sanchez when he was released from custody this past March resulted from San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policy, but I wasn’t sure about it.

Now we know. Sanchez should have been deported months ago. The San Francisco County sheriff’s department doesn’t honor ICE detainers under the city/county sanctuary-city policy.

Sanchez, incidentally, has admitted to shooting Steinle. You can view his statement to ABC7 News here. It was all an accident, of course, and he was only here looking for work. He’s the kind of illegal alien for whom San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy was fashioned.

At FrontPage, Matthew Vadum now summarizes the state of our knowledge regarding this way:

Federal authorities had Lopez-Sanchez in custody in March after he was set free from a federal prison. They transferred him to San Francisco authorities because he was wanted by them on drug-related charges. The feds filed what’s called an “immigration detainer” requesting that the local authorities notify them before releasing the man.

But San Francisco, home of the most militant leftists in America, refused the request because local policy forbids it. The prisoner in effect got a “get out of jail free card” from the left-wing open-borders movement which argues that keeping illegals in jail violates their constitutional rights.

The whole “sanctuary city” phenomenon follows from current Democratic Party orthodoxy. Vadum notes the cities that have adopted such a policy. All of them, of course, are Democratic Party strongholds:

The list of sanctuary cities is long and growing longer. A list compiled by an activist shows there are at least 30 in California alone including Oakland, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

Other major sanctuary cities across the country are Albuquerque, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Washington D.C.

It goes without saying that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi should be asked for comment on the Sanchez affair. Do they have any second thoughts about sanctuary-city policies? Democrats across the country should be asked. Democratic Party presidential candidates in particular should be asked. Let’s hear it.

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