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The tragic shooting of Kate Steinle in San Francisco has focused national attention on why her accused assailant, Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was released from the San Francisco Sheriff鈥檚 Department鈥檚 custody in April and not deported. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and others have rushed to cast blame on the sheriff鈥檚 department for Ms. Steinle鈥檚 death. But this horrible and apparently random act of violence shouldn鈥檛 be used to push a political agenda.

Did something go wrong here? Yes. But San Francisco鈥檚 policies are not to blame for this tragedy.

Although we don鈥檛 yet have all the facts, we do know that this case was unusual. Until late March, Lopez-Sanchez was in federal custody, serving a prison sentence that normally would have ended with deportation. His sentence apparently should have ended in July 2013, but for reasons we don鈥檛 yet understand, ICE did not deport him 鈥� then or at any time over the next year and 8 months, when Lopez-Sanchez inexplicably remained in federal custody. Finally, in March 2015, the federal Bureau of Prisons sent him to San Francisco based on a 20-year-old warrant for a marijuana charge 鈥� a charge that San Francisco predictably decided not to pursue because it was a low-level offense from two decades ago.

ICE now blames San Francisco for failing to notify ICE when that charge was dropped. But the sheriff says that what ICE sent was an immigration 鈥渄etainer鈥� 鈥� a form that asks for extended detention, which he could not enforce because it was not accompanied by a warrant. Under a and a , the sheriff鈥檚 department does not imprison people based on ICE detainers alone. Rather, like many other jurisdictions around the country, the sheriff鈥檚 department requires a judicial warrant before it will imprison someone at ICE鈥檚 request. This is not a controversial position 鈥� multiple federal courts have found constitutional defects with ICE鈥檚 detainer practices. When Lopez-Sanchez鈥檚 time in local custody was done, there was no legal basis for San Francisco to hold him.

Also relevant here is a more recent , which declines to share certain information with ICE. Even ICE recognizes that localities are not required to respond to notification requests. And there are good reasons why San Francisco decided to keep its distance from ICE: The sheriff鈥檚 department depends on the trust of the whole community, including immigrants, in order to solve crimes and keep people safe. Drawing a bright line between the sheriff鈥檚 department and federal immigration authorities is critical to maintaining that trust. At any rate, if ICE had only wanted advance notice so it could reassume custody of Lopez-Sanchez when his local charge was resolved, an outdated, legally discredited ICE detainer form was the wrong tool to use.

How could the federal government have handled this differently? If ICE had presented the Sheriff鈥檚 Department with a judicial order authorizing detention, San Francisco could legally have kept Lopez-Sanchez in custody temporarily for ICE鈥攁nd it would have done so, under its policies. But ICE didn鈥檛 do that.

So the question remains: Why did ICE use a detainer form that it knew San Francisco would not enforce 鈥� indeed a form that ICE itself has it will no longer use? Before policymakers rush to judgment, we need answers on what actually went wrong here.