House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., charged over the weekend that the Obama administration doesn't care about enforcing immigration laws.

In wake of the murder of Kathryn Steinle by an illegal immigrant felon in San Francisco last Thursday, Goodlatte said the Obama administration continues to show a lack of urgency about the need to enforce border laws.

"This administration is not enforcing our immigration laws and, quite frankly, I don't think they care, and this tragedy in San Francisco, which is repeated every day around the country, doesn't get this kind of notoriety, is the product of that lack of caring about respect for the rule of law and enforcing our laws," Goodlatte said on ABC News.

In an interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos, Goodlatte said the Bush administration made it mandatory that convicted illegal immigrants be deported, while the Obama administration has made it a "voluntary" practice.

"The Obama administration has converted that into something voluntary, and, in doing so, they have eliminated a program that was working called Secure Communities, where individuals like this would be detained and would be turned over to the immigration service," Goodlatte said. "Now, in addition to that, this administration is releasing criminals back onto the streets themselves."

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Goodlatte said Steinle's death was preventable and said it was both the federal government's and San Francisco's fault. While San Francisco has a sanctuary policy to protect illegal immigrants, the federal government knew that about it. Republicans in general have said the administration has not done enough to tell cities they cannot keep these sanctuary policies in place.

"So there is fault to be borne by both, but the fact of the matter is the laws need to be enforced," Goodlatte said.

"Why did [the Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ever turn him over to [San Francisco] when they could have deported him again, or they could have prosecuted him for illegally reentering the country four times and sent him to prison?" Goodlatte asked. "Either way, Kate Steinle would be safe. The fact of the matter is, San Francisco, why would they release somebody back onto their streets who's illegally in the United States and has committed seven prior felonies when they could have contacted ICE and turned him back over to them for deportation, and again, she would have been safe?"

Stephanopoulos pointed out that the Obama administration said there has been an 80 percent increase over the past six years in the amount of criminals being deported. However, Goodlatte said the two administrations defined deportation differently. When Bush administration officials caught illegal aliens at the border and sent them back to Mexico, they did not count that as deportation, Goodlatte said.

However, the Obama administration does count these actions as deportations, which "has driven those numbers up, but the actual deportations from the interior of the country are way down," he said.