Nutter: Donald Trump, bad; sanctuary cities, good
The mayor called Trumps rants against Mexico vicious and vile.
JUST BACK from a three-day business trip to Mexico, Mayor Nutter yesterday waded into the issues of Donald Trump and sanctuary cities.
"I met him once; he's a TV character," Nutter said of Trump. "So I don't know what his experience is. I know what my experience is, and I know whatever he's talking about is vicious, it's negative, it's vile and I think kind of violates general human decency.
"Sometimes people go right to the base level of whatever is in the dark recesses of their mind. He seems to be a person who needs a significant amount of public attention and will pretty much do anything to accomplish that particular goal."
Trump launched a presidential bid last month trashing Mexico by accusing the country of sending immigrants to the U.S. who are drug dealers and rapists.
Two weeks later, the real-estate mogul and former TV reality-show host sought to drive home his point by blaming San Francisco for the death of a woman killed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant in the U.S. illegally who had been deported five times and had seven felony convictions.
Lopez-Sanchez had been arrested there in March for selling marijuana, but the charges were dropped and San Francisco officials let him go instead of turning him over to federal immigration agents - who had issued a detainer requesting that he be held for them.
As a "sanctuary city," San Francisco only turns over immigrants in the U.S. illegally to the feds when they have a warrant.
Nutter, who in April 2014 signed an executive order making Philadelphia a sanctuary city, said the policy does not prevent the city from detaining violent criminals.
"As I've said on many, many occasions, I'm against criminals," he said. "Whether your folks came on the Mayflower, a slave ship or you just arrived here on a raft or in a truck, if you are a criminal . . . regardless of your immigration status, we don't want you here."