Tea Party U.S. Senator and overall terrible person, Pat Toomey (R. PA), fresh off his incredibly narrow re-election win took to the U.S. Senate floor and made his first request to Bigot-Elect Donald Trump:
Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey urged President-elect Donald Trump to take immediate action against Philadelphia and other sanctuary cities for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
"I hope that our president will take the executive order steps that he can to at least diminish this problem," Toomey said Wednesday from the Senate floor.
Toomey rattled off the names of three Philadelphia criminals in recent years who allegedly entered the country illegally. He said the city refused to alert Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents about the individuals once they were released.
"How can this possibly happen?" Toomey said. "That a city would knowingly, willfully and repeatedly choose to release dangerous criminals, including child molesters, who don't even have a right to be in the United States in the first place because they came here illegally."
Toomey is hoping that the Republican majority in Congress passes his bill, which will deprive sanctuary cities of federal community development block grants. Philadelphia used nearly $39 million in block grants this year.
I know, he’s terrible. So I would like to give a shout out to the mayor of my home town of Pittsburgh for this:
The President-Elect made undocumented immigrants the chief target of his campaign and pledged to end so-called “sanctuary cities” by cutting off federal funding.
Nonetheless according to Nick Keppler of Public Source, Pittsburgh is looking to officially join the ranks of cities, Philadelphia among them, that prohibit individuals from being investigated purely for reasons relating to their immigration status.
“The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police practice is to honor requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain those wanted in criminal investigations, but to refrain from working as immigration officers,” said Mayor Bill Peduto’s spokesman Timothy McNulty. “In other words, the PBP does not engage in investigatory detention of individuals based on their immigration status.”
I applaud Peduto’s bravery for standing up for what’s right. He faces the voters next year for re-election. Click here to get involved with his re-election campaign.