OPINION:
President Donald Trump has offered a lot of positives for this country so far — an America-first mantra that’s set global leaders on notice; a common-sense approach to environmentalism that’s set the rabid green groups on notice; a hard-charging military leadership that’s set the world’s terrorists on notice. Yada, yada. The list continues.
But nothing matches his border-control vows that culminated with the House passage of two bills on sanctuary cities.
This tops, so far, on the Trump administration’s priority-turned-policy list. This is a policy feat of huge and historical proportions.
Sanctuary cities ought to be shot — figuratively speaking, of course. The governments that blindly, blithely and egregiously offer shelter from the deportation storm from illegals, and from illegals with even felony criminal backgrounds, are collective slaps in the faces to all U.S. citizens, and particularly to the faces of the families of those victims who’ve been harmed by the recipients of the sanctuary policies.
Think Kate Steinle, the San Francisco woman who was gunned down in 2015 in broad daylight at the age of 32 as she walked on a pier with her father. The perpetrator? None other than an illegal with a multi-felony background who’d been previously deported several times — and who’d been in the city that fateful day taking full advantage of the city’s generous sanctuary status.
Trump rallied a whole base off this horrific killing. It’s the incident that shaped his campaign rhetoric, his campaign vows to tighten the borders — to go after sanctuary cities and strip these houses of liberal law of federal money.
And now the House has moved.
Kate’s Law and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act are common-sense immigration bills that should draw political support from both sides. But they don’t. Mostly, Republicans voted yes, and Democrats no.
“MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!” was Trump’s tweet on the bills’ passage — and he’s quite right.
The bills simply mandate harsher prison sentences on those illegals who commit crimes — crimes above and beyond their illegal border crossings, that is — and bars sanctuary cities from receiving federal dollars. It also, most happily, hands the victims of crimes committed by illegals in sanctuary cities the power and authority to sue these local governments for liability.
Accountability — imagine that. No wonder liberals are already howling and gearing to protest and sue. They’re just not used to being held accountable for amnesty policies that put citizens’ health, welfare, safety, security and lives in harm’s way.
They’re used to declaring from afar, then ducking and dodging when someone gets hurt.
“President Trump has been clear that our borders are not open to illegal immigration, that we are a nation of laws,” said Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, announcing the bills. “Well, we will no longer look the other way in the interior, either.”
And all the law-and-order people go — hurrah.
Truly, if Trump accomplishes little else, the fact that he’s clamping down on the evils of sanctuary cities — on the evils of safeguarding and protecting criminals at the expense of innocent and law-abiding citizens — solidifies his place in history as a president of great esteem. The two-year anniversary of Steinle’s murder is this Saturday. There’s really not a better way to honor her memory by getting these law-and-order bills in the hands of Trump to sign, and putting an end to the horrendous politically partisan practice of giving illegals free passes for crimes they commit. As Trump, and others of like-minded, law-and-order mind recognize: The security of our nation and the safety of its people depends on it.
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