A Mexican national who has been deported multiple times for illegally entering the United States pleaded not guilty to a murder charge Tuesday in the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle, who was strolling on the tourist-friendly Embarcadero with her father Wednesday when she was shot once in the back.
The case against the man whom prosecutors now identify as Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez (federal documents have cited another "true" name) has spurred outrage nationwide among critics of immigration policy.
San Francisco is among a number of counties and a handful of states that do not honor many requests by immigration authorities to hold inmates beyond their release date in order to hand them over for deportation.