The father of a Bay Area woman slain by an illegal immigrant in a sanctuary city told the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning that a legislative remedy needs to come out of his daughter’s death.
Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times and had an outstanding felony warrant for marijuana possession but was released by authorities in March. He has admitted to the July 1 San Francisco pier shooting of 32-year-old Kate Steinle.
“The day she was killed, we were walking arm in arm on Pier 14 In San Francisco, enjoying a wonderful day together. Suddenly a shot rang out, Kate fell, and looked at me and said ‘Help me, Dad.’ Those are the last words I will ever hear from my daughter,” Jim Steinle of Pleasanton, Calif., told senators.
“Everywhere Kate went throughout the world, she shined the light of a good citizen from the United States of America. Unfortunately, due to unjointed laws and basic incompetence of the government, the US has suffered a self-inflicted wound in the murder of our daughter by the hand of a person that should have never been on the streets in this country. I say this because the alleged murderer is an undocumented immigrant who has been convicted of 7 felonies in the US and already deported 5 times. Yet, in March of this year, he was released from jail and allowed to stay here freely because of legal loopholes.”
Steinle added “it is unbelievable to see that so many innocent Americans have been killed by undocumented immigrant felons in recent years.”
“In fact, we recently came across a statistic that says between 2010 and 2014, 121 unique criminal aliens who had an active deportation case at the time of release were subsequently charged with homicide related offenses,” he said. “Think about that, 121 times over the past 4 years the administration has released an illegal immigrant with prior criminal convictions that later went on to be charged with a murder when they should have been deported. That’s one every 12 days.”
“Our family realizes the complexities of immigration laws, however, we feel strongly that some legislation should be discussed, enacted and/or changed to take these undocumented immigrant felons off our streets for good. We would be proud to see Kate’s name associated with some of this new legislation. We feel that if Kate’s Law saves one daughter, one son, a mother or a father, Kate’s death won’t be in vain.”
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