Senate Democrats block bill to cut aid to sanctuary cities

WASHINGTON — Dismissing what they described as nativist political grandstanding, Senate Democrats blocked legislation Tuesday that would cut off federal funds to San Francisco and other cities that refuse to turn over people who are in the U.S. illegally to federal immigration authorities.

Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California joined a near-unanimous Democratic delegation in blocking full debate on the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, a GOP bill introduced after the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle on San Francisco’s Pier 14 in July, allegedly by a man who was facing deportation before being freed by the city’s Sheriff’s Department.

The White House backed them up with a veto threat, saying the legislation would hamper efforts by federal authorities to collaborate better with cities to remove criminals from the country.

The district attorney’s office decided not to charge Lopez-Sanchez, and in April the Sheriff’s Department let him go without alerting immigration officials.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican running for president, denounced the 340 cities and other jurisdictions that would allow “murderers, rapists, thieves, drunk drivers” and child sex abusers to remain in the country despite their criminal records.

“If it is the Democrats’ position that they would rather stand with violent criminal illegal aliens, that is sad testimony on where one of the two major political parties in this country stands,” Cruz said.

[...] Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey denounced the legislation as part of “the most overtly xenophobic, nativist campaign in modern American history,” one that “particularly demonizes the Latino community as rapists and murderers, courtesy of Donald Trump.”

The vote followed a widely publicized Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this year during which Steinle’s father, Jim Steinle of Pleasanton, held back tears as he described the night in July when his daughter was shot as she walked with him on the city’s waterfront.

Feinstein pushed an alternative measure that would require local law enforcement to notify federal agents when a potentially dangerous person was soon to be released, if the federal authorities had requested such notice.