Sanctuary city politics kill a young woman

authorities and hold him, Sanctuary San Francisco let Jose Zarate go.

There was a stolen gun in his hand as Kate Steinle and her father walked along Pier 14.

He initially told police he’d been shooting at a sea lion.

The bullet killed Kate Steinle instead. And a jury acquitted him of all the serious charges, from murder to manslaughter.

A charge of murder requires proof of direct intent and there were no witnesses to intent. I’ve seen it argued that local prosecutors overreached in charging murder in the first degree. I wouldn’t disagree.

Yet he also walked on manslaughter charges. And how a man can fire a gun and kill someone and not be convicted of manslaughter? That is beyond me.

Her father, Jim Steinle, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the family was shocked and saddened by the verdict. “Justice was rendered, but it was not served,” he said. And justice still isn’t being served, as long as sanctuary cities allow local political warlords to buy votes by bending federal law.

The politics of this are smart, and effective, which is why so many big cities with large Mexican populations have adopted sanctuary city policies.

But under the law, immigration is the province of the federal government. And without the law, what are we? A collection of squabbling city-states?

Why do we even have a federal government at all, if only to allow each state, each city and the local warlords to make their own separate immigration policy?

Only the people of a sovereign nation have the right to decide what to do about their own borders. And their will is expressed by Congress.

A nation without borders isn’t a nation. And releasing criminals onto the streets to satisfy your political goals isn’t policy. It’s dangerous.

In America, we say that justice is blind because we know that without justice under the rule of law, we’re finished.

What happened to Kate Steinle wasn’t justice. A bullet took her life. But it was politics that killed her.