Representatives from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Justice Department urged the passage of two immigration bills scheduled to get voted on this week during Wednesday’s White House briefing.
This announcement comes as Tom Homan, Acting Director of ICE, met with President Donald Trump and the families of victims killed by illegal immigrants for a round-table discussion yesterday.
The two bills—Kate’s Law and The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act—will be voted on by Congress later in the week. Both bills represent steps by the Trump administration and their allies to crackdown on illegal immigration.
Kate’s Law would increase penalties for undocumented immigrants who were convicted of a crime, deported from the United States, and then re-entered the country illegally. It is named for Kathryn Steinle, who was fatally shot and killed by an illegal immigrant who was deported multiple times and had multiple felony convictions on their record.
The second bill, The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, makes sanctuary cities ineligible for certain federal grants.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions pose a threat to the American public by refusing to work with ICE and allowing egregious criminal offenders back into the community to put the lives of the public at risk,” Homan said during the briefing.
United States Attorney John Huber added, “The moment law enforcement starts carrying out exemptions is the moment the rule of law starts to erode.”
Despite a great deal of push-back from Democratic partisans, both bills are anticipated by the Trump administration to pass without issue. This will be the administration’s first big legislative test on the issue of immigration.
The number of illegal crossings at the border has gone down since Trump took office, but the problem is far from remedied. Of the 66,000 arrested by ICE since January, 48,000 of them had prior criminal convictions.
