San Francisco murder sparks sanctuary city debate

The killing of a woman in San Francisco by a Mexican man who had been deported five times and was in the country illegally has re-ignited the sanctuary cities debate.

ABC-7 wanted to know if El Paso is considered a sanctuary city and could something like that happen here?

Sheriff Richard Wiles told ABC-7 El Paso is a sanctuary city in the sense that law enforcement does not ask for immigration status. But El Paso is not a sanctuary city for criminals and agencies do work together here when they’re released.

Authorities say 32 year-old Kathryn Steinle was killed in the sanctuary city of San Francisco by Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. When the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office dropped a drug charge against Sanchez, they failed to notify the feds, who wanted to deport him after spending time in federal prison for repeatedly sneaking back into the country.

“My job is to deal with the community safety in El Paso and to do that I need the cooperation of everybody here,” Wiles said before being asked by ABC-7 if that could happen in El Paso. “No, it would not have, because we don’t want to release criminals back on the street. Clearly the federal government had an interest in that individual and when the state charges were cleared we would have immediately notified them and they would have come and gotten him before we would have released him.”

Wiles said there are two ways the federal government determines if there is someone in jail here they have an interest in.

“One is they get a copy of our booking list that we produce every 24 hours its public record anybody can have access to it,” Wiles said. “They review that and if there’s somebody of interest they’ll come and interview them and we allow them access into the jail and they can put a detainer (on them).”

Wiles says they also electronically send fingerprints to the state and federal governments of anyone booked on a Class B misdemeanor or above.

“We need to work with the federal government to make sure that we do what is in the best interest of the community.” he said. “To release that person back into the community is a shame and clearly in this case it resulted in the death of a 32 year-old woman.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso sent ABC-7 this statement:

“ICE in El Paso works closely with local law enforcement. These agencies routinely honor ICE detainers, which are placed on foreign born individuals, arrested on criminal charges. This mutual cooperation helps protect public safety by removing criminal aliens from the United States.”

Exactly the cooperation that did not happen in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.