Senate will vote on Toomey’s ‘sanctuary cities’ bill
An immigration fight is coming back to the Senate floor in July.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) teed up a procedural vote on legislation that would withhold congressional funding from so-called sanctuary cities, which are cities and counties that bar their local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The issue has resonated in Congress — and on the campaign trail — since last July, when 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed by an immigrant here illegally as she walked on a San Francisco pier with her father. The suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, had been deported multiple times and had several felony convictions on his record at the time of Steinle’s death.
Donald Trump, then one of more than a dozen Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination, had highlighted Steinle’s death and “sanctuary cities” on the campaign trail. But more recently, it’s Republican Sen. Pat Toomey who’s made sanctuary cities a major campaign issue as he runs a highly competitive reelection race in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia is known as a sanctuary city. As he assumed office in January, Mayor Jim Kenney said the city would return to its old policy of not allowing cooperation between local jails and the feds, who want to be told when an immigrant will be released so the immigrant can be deported. The exceptions are when federal immigrant officials obtain a warrant and the person has been convicted of a violent felony.
Toomey has attacked that policy, both with persistent speeches on the Senate floor and in press events back in his home state. He rolled out the sanctuary cities legislation, which the Senate will vote on July 6 earlier this week.
“Sanctuary cities such as Philadelphia refuse to cooperate with the federal government in locating suspected terrorists who are in their custody and are in the country illegally,” Toomey said this week. “This refusal is simply inexcusable in light of the growing threat from violent Islamist extremism and recent terror attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, and elsewhere.”
In tandem with the procedural moves on Toomey’s bill, McConnell also set up a vote on legislation championed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that also stemmed from Steinle’s death. The measure, “Kate’s Law,” would boost mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain immigrants who repeatedly enter the country illegally.
The Senate voted on the sanctuary cities measures in October, but they had been combined into one bill. Now they are two separate measures, perhaps appeasing Republicans who oppose the concept of “sanctuary cities” but may be uneasy about toughening up mandatory minimum prison sentences.