"…Russ Feingold’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment…"
Senator Russ Feingold’s refusal to chime in on his party’s decision to block legislation to prevent sanctuary city policies says more than any politically crafted statement ever could. As Politico explains, the measure "would strip funding from sanctuary cities, which are cities and counties where local police and jails decline cooperation with the feds on immigration enforcement."
- The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 2015 ICE Enforcement And Removal Operations Report adds that "the enactment of numerous state statutes and local ordinances reducing and/or preventing cooperation with ICE… led an increasing number of jurisdictions to decline to honor immigration detainers in FY 2015. From January 2014… state and local law enforcement agencies declined 16,495 immigration detainers, resulting in convicted criminals being released back into U.S. communities with the potential to re-offend, notwithstanding ICE’s request for those individuals."
Senator Feingold’s election-year refusal, however, cannot undo his eighteen-year record.
Because of that record, Wisconsin families need not wonder how Senator Feingold would have voted on this week’s bill aimed at protecting communities from violent criminals and terrorists.
In stark contrast to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson – a "big backer" of the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary City Policies Act, Wisconsin Watchdog reports that Senator Feingold repeatedly voted in support of sanctuary cities:
…the Middleton liberal has voted against moves to block federal funding for sanctuary cities on at least three separate occasions, according to a review of his Senate voting record.
Senator Feingold’s commitment to a policy deemed "counterproductive to public safety" by President Obama’s own Secretary of Homeland Security aligns all too well with his dangerously weak record on national security.
During his two decades in Washington, Senator Feingold should have sought to protect Wisconsin communities as zealously as he fought to protect sanctuary cities.
Russ Feingold, defender of the sanctuary city
Wisconsin Watchdog
By M.D. Kittle
July 7, 2016
http://bit.ly/29rkJJ7
Democrats made sure “Kate’s Law” was dead on arrival this week, ending – for now – an effort to block federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities.
While Russ Feingold’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, the Wisconsin Democrat who is trying to recapture the Senate seat he lost in 2010 has a legislative record of opposing such bills and supporting sanctuary cities.
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U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, the Oshkosh Republican who sent Feingold packing after 18 years in the Senate, was a big backer of the bill. As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Johnson said he has heard the accounts of federal officials helpless to stop criminals from striking again.
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Just how Feingold would have voted this time around is not clear. His campaign did not return a request for comment.
But the Middleton liberal has voted against moves to block federal funding for sanctuary cities on at least three separate occasions, according to a review of his Senate voting record.
In 2007, he joined fellow Democrats in voting “nay” on an amendment “allowing information sharing between federal and law enforcement” on immigration status. The proposal would have amended the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to allow law enforcement agents to ask questions on immigration status if they have probable cause to believe an immigrant is in the country illegally. A substitute amendment would have overhauled U.S. immigration policies and institute new border security measures, including an electronic verification system.
The amendments failed, as did a comprehensive package of immigration reform bills championed by then-President George W. Bush. The reform package included a controversial “temporary worker program.”
Feingold voted for the guest worker program.
He also voted yes on allowing illegal immigrants to participate in Social Security.
U.S. Border Control, a nonprofit committed to ending illegal immigration by securing the nation’s borders, gave Feingold a zero percent rating on immigration issues.
In 2008, Feingold voted to table another amendment cutting funding for sanctuary cities.
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