Senator urges DOJ to punish ‘sanctuary cities’

A top Republican appropriator in the Senate is pushing the Obama administration to withhold federal funding from cities that fail to cooperate with federal law enforcement in immigration cases.

The “sanctuary” laws of those cities have come under intense scrutiny after a felon who’s in the United States illegally allegedly killed Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco last week.

{mosads}“Municipalities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration laws should not receive the Department of Justice’s federal law enforcement assistance funding,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Thursday.

Shelby serves as chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that crafts legislation funding the Department of Justice (DOJ). Last year, the panel appropriated more than $2 billion in grants for state and local law enforcement agencies through Justice Assistance Grants and the COPS program, the letter said.

{mosads}The GOP appropriator said he has a “simple and urgent request” for the DOJ regarding that funding.

“I ask that you use the Department’s administrative authorities as the grant-making agency to limit the availability of these taxpayer funds only to states and local agencies that affirmatively certify that they will follow the law and identify and hold criminal illegal immigrants in their custody when requested by the appropriate federal agency,” Shelby said.

Several hundred U.S. cities reportedly operate under these sanctuary laws, but Shelby said they are difficult to identify.

The suspect in the San Francisco slaying, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was released in April from a local jail. He had been deported to Mexico five times and San Francisco officials ignored a request from federal immigration officials to notify them when he was set free.

“Taxpayers should not be subsidizing such lawless activities on behalf of cities and states that puts public safety at risk,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said on Fox News’s “Hannity” Thursday evening.

Cotton has introduced legislation that would block these taxpayer-funded grants to cities that refuse to allow their law enforcement officials to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In the House this week, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) introduced a similar bill that would also defund sanctuary cities that resist cooperation with federal authorities.

On Fox News’s “On the Record,” GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday evening he also plans to introduce legislation that would go further than just blocking funding.

According to Paul’s office, the bill would require state and local law enforcement to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the arrest of an illegal immigrant and detain that person if federal officials make the request.

The bill also says that if the Bureau of Prisons receives a request from ICE to transfer an illegal immigrant into its custody, that request would take priority over state and local agencies.

“They say the law is murky here,” Paul said on Fox. “So I want to make it very explicit. San Francisco, you cannot break the law. And if you have someone who is here illegally, you have to turn them over to the immigration services. It needs to be explicit.”

Other presidential candidates including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton have criticized San Francisco for how its officials handled the convicted felon.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have said this week that the city’s sanctuary law was not to blame for Steinle’s murder, arguing the suspect should have never been released.

— This story was updated at 12:11 p.m.