During a town hall on CNN on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) argued that sanctuary city policies make us “safer,” and “in our sanctuary cities, our people are not disobeying the law. These are law-abiding citizens, it enables them to be there without being reported to ICE in case of another crime that they might bear witness to.”
Pelosi said, “San Francisco is a sanctuary city. And we see it as the a place where it makes us safer. It makes us safer, because people can go to school. They can get driver’s licenses. They can be witnesses against other violence that they see in the community. Whereas if they came forward to profess that, they’d have to be taken up by ICE. We don’t think that we should make our police officers immigration officers.”
Later, Pelosi was asked by the mother of a man who was killed by an illegal immigrant, “If you need to go home tonight and line up your babies as you say, and your grandbabies, which one of them could you look in their eyes today, and tell them that they’re expendable, for another foreign person to have an a nicer life? Which one would you like to say, ‘You, my child, are expendable for someone else to come over here and not follow the law and have a nicer life?'”
Pelosi responded by expressing her sympathy for the woman’s loss, and thanking her for using her energy to prevent something like that from happening again. She added, “I do want to say to you, that in our sanctuary cities, our people are not disobeying the law. These are law-abiding citizens, it enables them to be there without being reported to ICE in case of another crime that they might bear witness to.”
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett