He’s totally channeling Donald Trump:
The war of words between the Republican Senator Patrick Toomey and his general election opponent Democrat Katie McGinty continues to heat up. This time, the Toomey campaign released a radio ad hitting McGinty over her position on “sanctuary cities”.
A sanctuary city is not a standard legal term. Instead, the term is employed loosely, usually be critics, to describe cities or counties where there is some barrier preventing local law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials. Philadelphia has been considered a sanctuary city under Mayor Kenny.
The sixty-second spot, titled “Clear Difference”, paints McGinty as supporting an extreme and dangerous policy.
As the Toomey campaign points out, the Department of Homeland Security wants Philadelphiato reverse its status. Additionally, former Mayor of Philadelphia and Governor Ed Rendell, who also serves as Katie McGinty’s campaign chair, has argued against Philadelphia’s sanctuary city status.
Toomey called out Mayor Kenny for his actions as soon as he made Philadelphia a sanctuary city.
With presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump at the top of the ticket immigration and sanctuary cities are likely to remain a big topic for the entire election.
Of course McGinty fired back:
Toomey's attack on the refusal of the nation's fifth-largest city to cooperate with federal immigration authorities brought a swift response from McGinty.
Her campaign accused Toomey of lacking "moral authority" on the issue and of making the matter worse by opposing bipartisan immigration legislation in the U.S. Senate and embracing the "hateful" policies of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
McGinty's campaign said she does not believe sanctuary cities are "the solution." However, it said the federal government's recent willingness to ease its "one-size-fits all" request in favor of working with sanctuary cities to identify violent criminals or offenders "is a reasonable request" that McGinty supports, the campaign said.
Kenney's administration said Monday that evidence suggests that, until the federal government makes meaningful immigration policy changes, sanctuary cities are possibly safer than those that cooperate with immigration authorities because immigrants are not afraid to report crimes or otherwise cooperate with the police.
We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and we won’t be able to do that if Toomey is still in the Senate. Click here to donate and get involved with McGinty’s campaign.