An advocate of mass immigration defended sanctuary cities and scoffed that an upcoming congressional hearing featuring families whose children were murdered by illegals would be a “circus” during a Monday press call.

Angela Chan, Policy Director and Senior Staff Attorney for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said:

Last week, I took part in a gathering of over 100 community members, many of them immigrants, in front of San Francisco City Hall, to mourn the shooting of Kathryn Steinle and to extend our deepest condolences to her family. One of the concerns we have as we seek to make sense of this tragic shooting, is that we make sure we have all the facts and understand them carefully. We should not rush to judgment.

The facts of the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle are crystal clear: Her Mexican killer, convicted felon and five-time deported Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, confessed to shooting her and told law enforcement he chose to live in San Francisco illegally, because he knew he would not be deported again.

“Sanchez said he knew San Francisco was a sanctuary city where he would not be pursued by immigration officials,” an ABC7 report stated. Coincidentally, the same day Sanchez shot Steinle, another four-time deported Mexican illegal alien beat his wife to death with a hammer. Thanks to lax immigration enforcement, two women died needlessly the same day.

Chan went on to call witnesses at the hearing, including Steinle’s grieving father, “anti-immigrant” voices who are manipulating their children’s murders for their own gain.

“Some extreme anti-immigrant voices — including, of course, Donald Trump — are seeking to manipulate the tragedy for their own political purposes,” Chan said. “The Congressional hearings that are taking place tomorrow — we really see those as a circus where they’re going to — where some of the anti-immigrant voices are going to focus on politicizing this tragedy, and we think that’s really awful.”

Chan, along with Tom Manger, President of Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, and Grace Huang, Public Policy Coordinator, Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, were on the call. Manger and Huang will testify tomorrow, along with Mr. Steinle, at the hearing “Oversight of the Administration’s Misdirected Immigration Enforcement Policies: Examining the Impact on Public Safety and Honoring the Victims.”

Also testifying: Laura Wilkerson, who lost her youngest son on November 16, 2010 at the hands of an illegal alien classmate who proudly testified his “killing skills took over” when he beat and tortured Joshua Wilkerson to death and then set his body on fire.

Later in the call, Breitbart News asked the immigration activists if they agreed with Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s cold dismissal of Steinle’s murder as a “little thing:”

‘I saw that last week Representative Luis Gutierrez said on Telemundo that ‘Every time a little thing like this happens, they use the most extreme example to say, ‘sanctuary cities must be eliminated,’ referring to the death of Kathryn Steinle at the hands of a Mexican illegal immigrant. So, do you agree with Gutierrez that Steinle’s violent death at the hands of a Mexican illegal alien is a ‘little thing’ that shouldn’t affect national immigration policy?

There was a long pause before Chan finally spoke.

“I should say, I think that quote was taken out of context. I watched the longer version of the hearing [sic], and it doesn’t appear that’s exactly what he meant,” Chan said.

“Well, I have the transcript in front of me,” Breitbart News replied, but it’s unclear if the speakers on the line could hear anything after reporters asked their initial question or if Chan ignored the statement.

“We are very concerned about what happened, and that’s why we held a prayer and a vigil in front of city hall to express our condolences,” Chan continued. “It’s actually tragic and horrible as to what happened, and we do want to understand the facts of the case and craft thoughtful policy to address it.”

Huang and Manger remained silent.

As Breitbart News has previously reported, immigrant crime, committed by both legal and illegal aliens, is a phenomenon the media either lie about or ignore. A 2011 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that even counted the Muslim Boston bombers and the Chattanooga terrorist attack as “citizen crimes” still revealed that 249,000 immigrants averaged seven arrests apiece for 1.7 million arrests contributing to our vibrant, diverse society.

“There would have been at least 70,000 fewer sexual assaults, 25,000 fewer slayings, 125,000 fewer robberies,” and so on, had these aliens been rightfully deported. Twenty-five thousand people would still be alive today, were they not sacrificed on the altar of unlimited immigration. The U.S. would see a staggering 37 percent reduction in federal crimes if we deported the 3.5 percent of its population counted as illegal aliens.

Yet immigration activists still smear families whose children were savagely murdered by criminal aliens for creating a “circus” that they think is more “awful” than murder itself.

Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart.com.