Texas Governor Greg Abbott Signs Anti-Sanctuary City Bill into Law

05/07/2017

Here’s some good news from Texas. After working its way through the legislature, the bill prohibiting sanctuary cities made it to the governor’s desk, and he signed it on Sunday.

Tucker Carlson interviewed the governor last week and asked him about the legislation. Gov. Abbott explained what it would do:

GREG ABBOTT: This law ensures that we are going to ban sanctuary cities in the state of Texas and imposes civil penalties that can add up to more than $25,000 a day. It can impose jail time on officials who don’t follow the law and can lead to the removal of these public officials from their jobs, such as a sheriff like in Travis County who allowed sanctuary city policies to operate in Travis County.

That law sounds perfect. Every state should have one of those.

Abbott explained further:

What we’re talking about is going after those who have an ICE detainer request on them — someone who has already committed a crime, someone who’s proven themselves to be dangerous and someone who should not be on the streets.
Remember, Tucker there’s a tragedy that led to a lot of this, and that is Kate Steinle. People are forgetting about Kate Steinle and what happened, and the reason why she was killed was because in part of the sanctuary city policies of San Francisco. As governor of Texas, I cannot allow a San Francisco Kate Steinle situation to be repeated here. No governor, no law enforcement official anywhere should allow that type of tragedy to occur.

Certainly Kate Steinle is not the only innocent person killed by an illegal alien — far from it — but she has become the one American who is remembered as such.

Here’s the AP report about the signing:

Texas governor signs anti-‘sanctuary city’ law, Associated Press, May 7, 2017
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a law targeting so-called “sanctuary cities” that allows police to ask about a person’s immigration status and threatens sheriffs with jail if they don’t cooperate with federal authorities.

Republican Abbott on Sunday took the unusual step of signing the bill on Facebook with little advance notice. He said Texas residents expect lawmakers to “keep us safe.”

The bill cleared a final hurdle this week in the Republican-controlled Legislature over objections from Democrats and immigrant rights supporters who’ve packed the Texas Capitol. They call it a “show-me-your-papers” measure that will be used to discriminate against Latinos.

Every major police chief in Texas opposed the bill. Republicans say it is needed to ensure local jails honor requests from federal officials to keep dangerous offenders behind bars.

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