Laura Wilkerson, the mother of a young boy who was tortured to death by an illegal immigrant, confronted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) at a CNN town hall on Tuesday night, where she criticized sanctuary cities, like San Francisco, for choosing to disavow federal immigration laws.
"There are over 300 cities in this country that are sanctuary cities, like San Francisco, and you're not only choosing to disavow a law, but you are adding sanctuary to people who come there and disavow the law," Wilkerson said to Pelosi, who represents San Fransisco in Congress.
"In 2010, one of the illegals slaughtered my son. He tortured him, he beat him, he tied him up like an animal, and he set him on fire," Wilkerson continued. "And I am not a one-story mother. This happens every day. Because there are no laws enforcing the border. We have to start giving American families first."
Wilkerson then provided Pelosi with a hypothetical scenario in which she had to choose one of her children or grandchildren and tell them that they are expendable for a foreign person to have a better life.
"If you need to go home tonight and line up your babies, as you say, and your grandbabies, which one of them could you look in their eyes today, and tell them that they're expendable for another foreign person to have an a nicer life?" Wilkerson asked.
Pelosi responded by commending Wilkerson for telling her story and said that she could not imagine what she is going through.
"You can't," Wilkerson responded.
"I pray for you. Again, we all pray that none of us has to experience what you have experienced. So thank you for channelling your energy to help prevent something like that from happening," Pelosi said. "But I do want to say to you, that in our sanctuary cities, our people are not disobeying the law."
Pelosi went on to say that people in sanctuary cities are law-abiding citizens and that it enables them to be there without being reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"Will my son's killer get sanctuary from the law in your city when he gets out of jail?" Wilkerson asked.
Pelosi said "of course not" and asked Wilkerson whether or not her son was killed in a sanctuary city. Wilkerson said that it was an unspoken rule in Houston, Texas at the time.
"The point is that you don't turn law enforcement officers into immigration officers. That is really what the point is in a sanctuary city, so it's not a question of getting sanctuary to someone who is guilty of a crime," Pelosi said. "They should be deported or sent to jail for what they do."