Kate Steinle Verdict: Is This the End for Sanctuary Cities?

We’re shocked that any activist who spends their time advocating for illegal immigrants is willing to show his or her face in public after the travesty that went down in a San Francisco courtroom on Thursday. Kate Steinle’s murderer – Jose Ines Garcia Zarate – was acquitted on all serious charges relating to the shooting, even though he is (and this is not disputed by him) the one who stole the gun and pulled the trigger. His name will go down in history alongside Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson in the Hall of Killers Set Free By Idiot Juries, but his exoneration may actually be a boost to those who want to see a major crackdown on illegal immigration.

Garcia Zarate’s name never achieved the kind of household status as his victim – a rare change when it comes to media coverage of homicide – but he nevertheless came to stand for everything that is wrong with so-called sanctuary cities. Before he killed Steinle in 2015, most Americans were not even aware that San Francisco and another 300 cities provided shelter for illegal immigrants. That they actually had laws on the books prohibiting their law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. That they refused to turn over arrested immigrants to ICE. This was a shock to many, and it played no small role in helping Donald Trump win the Republican nomination and, ultimately, the election.

Despite having been deported five previous times and possessing a long rap sheet that he, being illiterate, would be unable to read, Garcia Zarate is apparently the kind of upstanding guy Democrats think we need more of in this country. They especially believe that out in California, where they are doing everything they can to stand in the way of the Trump administration’s efforts to get tough on illegal immigration. Whether it’s punishing contractors who bid on the border wall or passing laws that provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants statewide, California Democrats have determined that they will not rest until the state is overrun by poorly-educated criminals from Mexico and beyond. How this speaks to the average California voter is a mystery, but maybe the average California voter isn’t who he used to be.

“From day one, this case was used as a means to foment hate, to foment division and to foment a program of mass deportation,” said the defendant’s lawyer, Francisco Ugarte. “Nothing about Mr. Garcia Zarate’s ethnicity, nothing about his immigration status, nothing about the fact that he is born in Mexico had any relevance as to what happened on July 1, 2015.”

But that’s just not true. Because if Obama had been serious about keeping illegal immigrants out of this country and if San Francisco hadn’t been so cavalier about letting them stay, Garcia Zarate wouldn’t have been on that pier to shoot Kate Steinle. This entire case, from the shooting to the verdict, is a foghorn telling us that we need to make drastic changes in the way we deal with illegal immigration. California may not understand that, but President Donald Trump does. For now, that’s good enough.