President Trump responded Thursday to a California jury’s “disgraceful” decision to acquit an illegal alien accused of murdering Kate Steinle.
“A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration,” Trump said on Twitter Thursday night, just hours after a jury acquitted Jose Ines Garcia Zarate.
A disgraceful verdict in the Kate Steinle case! No wonder the people of our Country are so angry with Illegal Immigration.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2017
Zarate, a convicted felon who has been deported from the U.S. five times, was accused of fatally shooting the 32-year-old Steinle in July 2015 while she was walking with her father and a friend in San Francisco.
Zarate had admitted that he fired the gun that killed Steinle, but he claimed that it discharged accidentally. A bullet fired from the weapon ricocheted off of the concrete and struck Steinle. The gun had been stolen a week before the shooting from the vehicle of a federal Bureau of Land Management agent.
After six days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Zarate of first- and second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and assault with a semi-automatic weapon. He was found guilty only of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Federal authorities announced that Zarate will be deported for a sixth time.
The case touched off a national debate about sanctuary cities because of the circumstances of Zarate’s release from a San Francisco jail several months before he shot Steinle.
The San Francisco sheriff’s department released the illegal alien from custody even though federal immigration authorities had requested that he be handed over for deportation. San Francisco is one of dozens of U.S. cities that refuses to cooperate with federal immigration agencies.