In a Wednesday Fox News interview, Speaker Paul Ryan seemed to suggest that the reason the House has not pushed Kate’s Law is because he is opposed to “clogging up our jails” with illegal alien drunk drivers.

Kate’s Law—named in honor of Kate Steinle—would increase the penalty for illegal immigrants who return to the U.S. after being deported. Last year, Steinle was gunned down in broad daylight by a five-time deported criminal alien. In congressional testimony last summer, Steinle’s father recalled holding his daughter in his arms as she was bleeding to death and hearing her dying words: “Help me, Dad.”

On his Wednesday program, Bill O’Reilly pressed Ryan—who is the leader of the pro-illegal immigration wing of the Republican Party—on why the House has yet to push Kate’s Law nearly a year after her murder:

O’Reilly: “Right now we have a system where we can’t protect Americans from violent criminal aliens, who defy deportation four, five, six times. We still can’t protect Kate Steinle, a 32 year-old woman in San Francisco from being killed. Kate’s Law would make it easier for the authorities to apprehend foreign criminals … and it would also provide mandatory sentences just for defying deportation. And Congress can’t get it done, and the folks don’t understand why.” Ryan: “Well, first of all, the guy shouldn’t have been here in the first place if we actually enforced our immigration laws. That’s point one. Point two: we have to take after sanctuary cities. We have to deal with—and we’ve been doing this through the appropriations process—we have to deal with cities that are openly defying our immigration laws because that gives safe haven to people like this—so that’s point one, two. Point three: what we have to figure out is how do we write Kate’s Law so that we’re not clogging up our jails so much for, say, DUI, but for the true violent criminals? … We need to get the details right so that we actually are going after the people that are doing this. … Trust me, you know we’re frustrated about this.”

Ryan’s suggestion that the House doesn’t want to “clog” U.S. jails with illegal alien drunk drivers might come as a surprise to the many Americans who have been victimized and have lost their loved ones to the reckless driving of illegal aliens, who may not only be illiterate, but addicted to drugs and alcohol.

As CBS Los Angeles has reported, illegal aliens are responsible for the high hit-and-run rate in Los Angeles:

The number of hit-and-run accidents in Los Angeles is four times higher than the national average, with one in five fatal crashes involving an unlicensed driver, according to a new report. …. “The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports unlicensed drivers are five times more likely to kill, they will flee the scene over 50 percent of the time, five times more likely to drive drunk,” said [Don] Rosenberg.”

Rosenberg’s 25 year-old son, Drew, was killed by an illegal alien who ran over Drew’s body with a car three times.

“Unlicensed drivers were involved in more than 7,600 fatal crashes — about 20 percent of fatal crashes nationwide,” CBS Los Angeles writes. “There were an estimated 21,000 hit-and-run collisions that were reported as “accidents” in Los Angeles in 2010 alone, according to the study.”

Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, a 32 year-old Mesa police officer, was murdered by an intoxicated criminal illegal alien who was driving the wrong way down a freeway. As Mendoza’s mother wrote in a letter to President Obama, “I had my son’s life STOLEN from me by a man who didn’t value his life, was 3X the legal limit drunk, was high on Meth, drove for over 35 miles THE WRONG WAY on 4 different freeways.”

UPDATE: Injury Accident – I-10 at US-60 – HOV SB TO EB ,#Tempe – Yes, something is on fire here. Extrication needed. pic.twitter.com/pWTaO10Gkh — WichitaScanner (@Wichita_Scanner) May 12, 2014

Sarah Root, a 21 year-old woman who had just graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA, was killed in January by an illegal Honduran who was street racing while drunk. Root’s mother told Breitbart News that Sarah’s killer had rear-ended her at more than 70 mph: “It severed her spine and broke her skull in two places when her head came back and hit the headrest.”

Root’s killer is not currently “clogging up our jails” because he was quickly released after posting bail and remains at large. In emotional congressional testimony, Root’s mother said that her daughter’s killer “spent four days in jail and is believed to have fled the country.” His bail was “less than the amount it cost to bury my baby,” she said.

Dominic Durden, a 30-year-old 9-1-1 dispatcher, was murdered by an illegal alien who was driving without a license and who had two prior DUI charges.

O’Reilly concluded the segment by practically begging Ryan to pass Kate’s Law:

But it’s [been] almost a year, and now, the Steinle family is so brokenhearted that they’re suing the federal government because the federal government won’t right the wrong. … Put the Kate’s Law standalone. Do something. See? Americans just want you to try. They want you to try. And if Obama doesn’t do it, or Reid doesn’t do it, let them take it. You try. You do the right thing.

Ryan replied:

You know that we are trying. You know that. The reason we’re so frustrated is that in this divided government, we can’t pass our principled conservative reforms through into law. … That is why we’re offering an agenda that we’re asking the American people, give us the kind of government that can get these things into law.

However, in a Sunday CBS interview, when speaking to a different audience, Ryan announced that deporting the illegal population is “not part of our agenda.”

Paul Ryan has a two-decade history of pushing open borders immigration policies. Ryan also has a long history of fighting to maintain illegal immigrants’ access to social services paid for by U.S. taxpayers—including Ryan’s efforts in the “crusade” against California’s Proposition 187, a popular ballot initiative that would have prevented illegal aliens from accessing public benefits.

Paul Ryan has previously said that he believes it is the job of U.S. lawmakers to put themselves in the shoes of foreign nationals, such as a “gentleman from India who’s waiting for his green card” or the illegal alien “DREAMer who is waiting.”

Last year, Ryan’s omnibus spending bill rewarded sanctuary cities with federal grants.

When Kate Steinle was murdered, Republican leadership failed to meaningfully address the issue. Indeed, at the height of national focus and public outrage about the issue, the Republican-majority Senate adjourned for its August recess without taking any substantial action against sanctuary cities.

This stands in stark contrast to the messaging campaign Paul Ryan has done in recent days articulating his opposition to Donald Trump’s plan to curb Muslim migration. In the past three days alone, Ryan has denounced Trump’s call to pause Muslim migration in multiple high-profile media appearances.

Ryan showed no such enthusiasm for pushing Kate’s Law. While Ryan has found new and creative ways to make his concerns about Trump front-page news, no such effort has been made on behalf of Americans murdered by illegal aliens—the former whom Congress represents.

While Democrats, during their time in the majority, made one high-profile push after another for the issues their base cared more about, GOP leaders have never leveraged their bully pulpit in any way on behalf of American victims of immigrant crime—or against supporters of sanctuary cities.

YouTube, for instance, is filled with passionate addresses from Democrat leaders on issues ranging from gun control to equal pay legislation; no such catalogue exists for Republican leaders on the harms open borders impose.

As Breitbart News reported prior to Ryan’s ascension to House Speaker, a Ryan Speakership would “mean that conservative lawmakers will be blocked from any attempt to advance legislative campaigns to curb immigration or to coordinate any public messaging designed to give voice to the concerns of working class Americans whose schoolhouses, jobsites and emergency rooms have been transformed by massive immigration.”