'Sanctuary' costs U.S. lives

ONLY AN IMBECILE would deny that 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle would be alive today if San Francisco were not a sanctuary city.

Stubborn, self-righteous city leaders enabled Steinle's death by turning loose five-times-deported Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 56, with seven felony convictions, knowing the feds wanted him.

The same thing would happen in Philadelphia under our sanctuary city rules. The city will not change its policy of not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a city spokesman told me.

A spokeswoman for Democratic mayoral candidate Jim Kenney said he would keep the same policy, while Republican mayoral candidate Melissa Murray Bailey told me, "We cannot ignore a federal law" and doing so puts Philadelphians at risk.

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told CNN that San Francisco "made a mistake" in releasing the felon.

It was not a "mistake," it followed policy. The policy is a mistake.

And not the first time it has cost an innocent life.

In 2008 in San Francisco, Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot to death in their car after a family outing. Murderer Edwin Ramos was from El Salvador, living in this country illegally, and got probation twice for violent crimes, but was not deported.

Soft-hearted and muddle-headed politicians allowed Ramos to stay. Three people died. Is that what Philadelphia wants?

Under U.S. law anyone here illegally, even with no arrests, is subject to deportation. What's on the table here are convicted criminals.

Early this month, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte told the Washington Times that more than 30,000 criminals here illegally were released onto the streets by the Department of Homeland Security while waiting for their cases to be heard. Many vanish into the woodwork.

Last month the Boston Globe reported "hundreds of immigrants convicted of sex crimes who should have been deported" were released instead.

Using numbers from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, of 74,911 federal crimes in fiscal 2014, 27,505, or 36 percent, were committed by those here illegally. Documented foreigners were responsible for only 3,017, or 4 percent.

Sanctuary cities feel if you don't like a law you can nullify it without going through the proper legislative process.

"There are those in the immigrants'-rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are here illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we have better laws," said President Obama in 2010. He rejected that notion.

Yet the federal government hauled Arizona into court for attempting to enforce federal immigration law, but doesn't lift a finger against any the estimated 300 "sanctuary" communities that are breaking the law.

What does that say about Obama's sincerity?

Cooperation with ICE is the law - the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton.

Philadelphia ignores the law.

When the enablers of undocumented lawbreakers demanded in 2009 that the city cease to cooperate with the federal government, Mayor Nutter rightfully refused.

Since then, he has caved and caved again to the squawking of the criminal-coddlers.Nutter's final capitulation came in April 2014 when he issued an executive order with devastating loopholes. ICE would be notified only if a suspect has a previous conviction. But not just a conviction, it must be a felony. Not just a felony, it must be a first- or second-degree felony. Not just a first- or second-degree felony, it must also involve violence.

Good news for undocumented (nonviolent) drunken drivers, drug dealers and car thieves.

It was great news for Jose Palermos, who in March 2013 was convicted of indecent assault on a 7-year-old girl. That got him listed as a sex offender, but wasn't enough for the city to honor ICE's request to hold him. His was "only" a third-degree felony.

Our lawmakers are protecting lawbreakers. Innocent citizens will pay the price.

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

Blog: ph.ly/BykoColumns: ph.ly/StuBykofsky