WASHINGTON — Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., will get a second chance to push a controversial immigration bill through the same partisan Senate that rejected a similar proposal six months ago.
Mr. Toomey changed his sanctuary cities bill to ameliorate some of the Democrats’ concerns and now, he hopes, it has a better chance of passing.
It’s one of several votes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is allowing this week in what The Associated Press has described as an apparent effort to help vulnerable Republican incumbents chalk up legislative wins ahead of the November general election.
Mr. Toomey’s bill would cut federal funding to cities that prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officers. Pittsburgh is not a sanctuary city, but Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney prohibits officers in his city from cooperating with immigration officials who want to be notified when undocumented immigrants will be released from jail so they can be deported. Mr. Kenney allows exceptions for those convicted of violent crimes.
The issue came to light a year ago when an undocumented immigrant with a history of felony convictions killed 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco. Her killer had been deported five times, and just three months earlier, the city of San Francisco refused to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security’s request to detain him.
“It’s crazy for a city to willfully release a dangerous criminal just because the person is here illegally, but that’s what we have, and Philadelphia has one of the most egregious forms of sanctuary cities,” Mr. Toomey said. “They won’t even share information with the Department of Homeland Security if the Department of Homeland Security believes the person they are holding may be a terrorist. It defies common sense.”
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., sponsored the earlier bill, which failed in the Senate by six votes. Democrats had characterized it as a xenophobic, hateful assault on immigrants and an attempt to legitimize comments by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who had described Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers.