The United States plans to deport the Mexican man who was acquitted of killing Kathryn Steinle, a woman whose 2015 death while walking along a San Francisco pier fueled a fierce national debate over immigration, it said Thursday the officials. Donald J. Trump, then a presidential candidate, highlighted the case in his attacks on migration and sanctuary cities.
Jose Inez Garcia Zarate was acquitted by a jury in November 2017 of murder and manslaughter charges, but was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He said he fired the gun by accident and evidence presented at trial indicated the bullet ricocheted.
He was sentenced to serve time in 2022, but has remained in prison since then for federal probation violations. He was transferred to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 11, 2019. 16, agency officials said.
According to a Department of Homeland Security official, ICE expects to deport Mr. Garcia Zarate to central or southern Mexico within a few days to a week. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly, spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ms. Steinle’s death has become a touchstone in a heated debate over how law enforcement should approach immigrants without legal status. Mr. Garcia Zarate, who is in his 40s and 50s, was convicted of multiple crimes and deported to Mexico at least five times from 1993 to 2011, according to court documents.
The national debate continues today as Trump, once again running for president, seeks to galvanize support for his hard-line immigration agenda. President Biden, who took office promising a more humane immigration system after the Trump years, has also adopted an increasingly strong line on immigration.
At the time of Ms. Steinle’s killing, ICE officials said the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department had not honored their request to detain Mr. Garcia Zarate. Instead, the sheriff’s department released him from custody.
Ms. Steinle’s family tried and failed to sue the city of San Francisco for releasing Mr. Garcia Zarate without telling federal immigration authorities a few months before the shooting.
“This is an absolutely shameful situation and I am the only one who can fix it. No one else has the courage to even talk about it. This will not happen if I become president,” Mr. Trump said at the moment. Hillary Rodham Clinton, another presidential candidate, also said San Francisco made a mistake in releasing Garcia Zarate.
The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, which represented Mr. Garcia Zarate in his trial, said the case had been misinterpreted by the public.
“From day one, this case has been used as a means to foment hatred, division, a mass deportation program… and I believe today it is a vindication of immigrant rights,” a public defender told The San Francisco news in 2017.
The shooting has brought renewed attention to the issue of sanctuary cities like San Francisco, which limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
The Trump administration has sought to crack down on sanctuary cities, including by attempting to withhold federal funding from them. Many cities are worried about working with ICE out of fear that agents will indiscriminately arrest migrants across the country.
ICE often relies on local jails to work with them to have deportation agents pick up migrants they want to detain and deport.
