There should be no sanctuary from the law

The last serious attempt to count the number of federal criminal laws appears to have been made in 1982 by a retired Justice Department official named Ronald Gainer. He failed, but the estimate then was 50 volumes and more than 23,000 pages of federal law. Many more laws have been added since then.

One thing is certain: If you violate federal law you are likely to be punished with a fine, imprisonment, or both. These laws are supposed to apply to everyone, except if you’re an official in San Francisco or in the country illegally and living there. In the City by the Bay officials claim the right to ignore laws applying to illegal immigrants. They call it a “sanctuary city.”

By now, anyone not preoccupied with stories about shark attacks, the Confederate flag, or singer Ariana Grande “maliciously licking” doughnuts she did not buy, has heard about 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle, who was gunned down by an illegal immigrant while walking with her father on a San Francisco pier. Her accused killer is Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a convicted felon from Mexico who had been deported five times but always managed to sneak back in, choosing San Francisco, he reportedly said, because he knew it was a “sanctuary city” and he wouldn’t be turned over to immigration authorities.

San Francisco is not alone. Many large urban cities and some small ones have adopted so-called “sanctuary policies.” But if laws are not enforced, what is the point of having them on the books?

Congress should step in and deny federal funds to the city of San Francisco, as long as it continues to ignore the law. President Obama is unlikely to speak, much less lead on this issue, because the Democratic Party thinks it can win most of the Hispanic vote in 2016. Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce want cheap immigrant labor, so they will huff and puff but do nothing, hoping the controversy goes away. The public must not let this happen.

If politicians are so afraid of losing the Hispanic vote that they do nothing in response to the murder of Kathryn Steinle, they should be removed from office. The notion that Hispanics won’t vote for a party that stands for justice for one of their own is racist.

© 2015 Tribune Content Agency LLC.

Listen to Cal Thomas’ commentary on The World and Everything in It.