Senate GOP plans contentious immigration vote - bill set to be taken up targets so-called sanctuary cities

Senate Republicans are planning a vote on a controversial immigration bill this month punishing sanctuary cities like San Francisco that give safe harbor to immigrants in the U.S. illegally — months after authorities say an undocumented immigrant shot and killed a young woman on a San Francisco pier.

The legislation from Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) would target sanctuary cities — localities where local law enforcement officials decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities — by withholding key federal grants and increasing prison sentences for those who try to re-enter the United States after being deported.

“That will be the comeback vote, in all likelihood, for after the next break,” Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said Wednesday. He was referring to the week of Oct. 19, after next week’s Senate recess. The vote would come days before Louisiana’s gubernatorial election on Oct. 24; Vitter, a candidate in that race, has been struggling in the campaign.

The sanctuary cities issue, which exploded in the public sphere after the July 1 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, had been kicked to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans struggled to come to a consensus on legislation. The suspect in the slaying, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, had been deported from the United States five times before he returned and allegedly killed Steinle.

That month, Vitter repeatedly called for attaching sanctuary cities legislation to a sweeping rewrite of No Child Left Behind, a move that could have threatened the prospects of the largely bipartisan education reform bill. Vitter ultimately struck a deal with Senate GOP leaders to take up the immigration measure in the Judiciary Committee instead — a move that saved the education bill but became an unresolved headache for Judiciary Committee Republicans that has persisted for nearly three months because of intraparty rifts on the issue.

Many Republicans — including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination — lobbied for a bill that would implement a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years for an illegal reentry offense as a key part of the party’s response on sanctuary cities. Cruz had been highlighting his efforts to pass that provision on the campaign trail, which Republicans named “Kate’s Law” after Steinle.

But other GOP senators, including Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Flake of Arizona, opposed that idea. The split increased the likelihood that a tough-on-illegal-immigration proposal would not be able to pass a Republican-led panel. The committee’s chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, had to delay marking up the bill multiple times.

And some Republicans could also defect during the Senate floor battle. In an interview Wednesday, Flake — a longtime GOP advocate of comprehensive immigration reform — said he would oppose the sanctuary cities legislation on the floor if the mandatory minimum provisions weren’t “fixed.”

“I won’t vote for it unless there is some adjustment on the mandatory minimums,” Flake said.

ICE Director John Morton Kills California's TRUST Act

In a report issued today by the Immigrant Youth Coalition, IYC accused ICE Director John Morton of single-handedly sabotaging the efforts of the California Legislature to mitigate the harsh effects of the "Secure Communities" by the passage of the TRUST Act. In order to stop the California TRUST Act which had gained widespread support, Immigration Customs Enforcement's Director John Morton went as far as to blackmail the Governor of California into vetoing the TRUST Act. When advocates asked the governors office why Brown vetoed the bill, the staff responded that they had received a call from John Morton Director of ICE saying that if Brown doesn't veto the TRUST Act that California would essentially go back to the old days in reference to immigration raids and more overt enforcement. California would have been the first state in which the impact of "Secure Communities" would be significantly reduced by not honoring immigration detainers. California holds one of the largest undocumented immigrant population in the nation, and deports about 80,000 undocumented immigrants about one fourth of the yearly quota for deportations that the Department of homeland security set in 2010. John Morton could not allow for the TRUST Act to pass, with the Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals now being implemented the pool of deportable immigrants shrunk by almost a million. ICE needed to make sure they meet their 400,000 a year quota for deportations and so they intervened in state politics to ensure the survival of "Secure Communities" If the "Prosecutorial Discretion" memo were actually implemented, laws like the TRUST Act wouldn't be necessary. The TRUST Act would ensure that people with minor or no offenses would be let go without any immigration consequences; it was California's way of holding the Federal Government accountable.

Started at a New Law Practice This Week

On Monday October 1, 2012, I began my association with a great group of attorneys in Oakland, California, leaving behind the Law Offices of Haitham Ballout, where I practice for the last five years. The incentive in making this change is the intention of the group to form a partnership with myself as one of the named partners. This is an exciting and challenging moment, but in the long run, I firmly believe this is the right move professionally. In my former position at Mr. Ballout's Office, a very capable young attorney as accepted the offer and she will fill my post. The new practice will focus on removal and deportation cases, along with Mr. Dae Hee Kim, Esq. as the experienced criminal defense counsel. I have many years of experience in handling both immigration and criminal appellate cases. My experience also includes many administrative appeals to both the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO)in humanitarian cases, removal defense, and visa petitions, which involves Walsh Act cases and waivers of all types.