SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – San Francisco’s sheriff touched off a new round of fighting Friday in the immigration enforcement blame-game that has surrounded the shooting death of a young woman walking with her father along a scenic pier.
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi ardently defended his jail’s release of a Mexican national later blamed for the slaying of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle, saying federal officials know city law requires a warrant or court order to detain an inmate for deportation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials fired back, saying Mirkarimi has mischaracterized the incident and shown a “manifest misunderstanding of federal immigration law” by demanding a warrant for deportation to cooperate with federal authorities.
“There is no such document, nor is there any federal court with the authority to issue one,” ICE said in a statement. The agency has said Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez would have been deported if the San Francisco jail had complied with its requests.
The latest salvos come as the case dominates the immigration debate. Top politicians from both parties have criticized San Francisco’s law of non-cooperation with immigration officials and have called on the city – and the estimated 300 other municipalities with similar laws – to revamp their policies.