Republican lawmakers have moved to toughen penalties for illegal immigrants with criminal histories who are caught at the border.
GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa joined Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) on Friday to reintroduce Kate’s Law, which would establish a minimum five-year sentence for any noncitizen with multiple convictions or an aggravated felony.
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“We need tougher penalties for individuals who re-enter our country illegally, especially those who do so with a long rap sheet to their name,” Grassley said in a statement. “It’s dangerous and unjust to let these criminals off the hook. I hope Democrats will wake up to the reality at our southern border and drop opposition to this bill. The safety of American citizens depends on it.”
Kate’s Law was named after Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old American woman who was fatally shot in San Francisco in 2015 by a previously deported illegal immigrant. Steinle had been visiting a pier with family when five-time deported Jose Inez Garcia Zarate of Mexico, confessed that he found a gun on the pier and had been playing with it when he shot her.
“Eight years ago, when I first introduced Kate’s Law, I was just as shocked and dismayed that Kate Steinle was killed by an illegal felon who had reentered the U.S. as I am today,” Cruz said. “Almost a decade has gone by since this shooting, and we have yet to strengthen federal law to prevent a tragedy like this from recurring.”
Under the Biden administration, 2 million illegal immigrants, including unaccompanied children, have been discharged from federal custody at the border and permitted to remain in the country through court proceedings.
In several known instances, some immigrants were released despite being affiliated with gangs or having lied about their age and background. In two separate cases, a Virginia woman and a Florida man were murdered by immigrants released into their communities.
The timing of the bill’s introduction coincidentally overlapped with the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to allow the Biden administration to proceed with its proposed plan to prioritize certain illegal immigrants for arrest and deportation.
Federal law permits Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest any person in the United States who does not have legal standing to be in the country. However, because more than 11 million illegal immigrants are present and ICE has fewer than 6,000 officers in its Enforcement and Removal Operations arm, the agency has had to prioritize who it will target, as was also done during the Obama administration.
The bill would address illegal immigrants with criminal histories at the border. ICE typically arrests illegal immigrants who are inside the U.S. and have been arrested by local police and then flagged by criminal databases for federal officers to take into custody for immigration violations.
Garcia Zarate had seven felony convictions at the time of his 2015 arrest.
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Garcia Zarate said he fired the gun accidentally, and a jury in 2017 acquitted him of homicide charges, but he pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges.
In June 2022, a federal judge sentenced him to the seven years he’d already spent in jail.
