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SAN FRANCISCO (AP)

The murder trial of an illegal immigrant who killed Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier is inching closer to starting, two years after the shooting set off a fierce immigration debate.

A judge on Friday ordered Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 54, back to court on July 21.

President Trump and others seized on the shooting to argue for tougher immigration enforcement and for the abolition of so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco, which prohibits its law enforcement officials with cooperating with federal authorities on most deportation matters.

Lopez-Sanchez had been convicted five times of illegal re-entry into the United States when the San Francisco sheriff released him from jail after a minor marijuana charge was dismissed.

++Feds: SF pier shooting suspect deported 5 times

Lopez-Sanchez was released despite a request from federal immigration officials to detain him for possible deportation.

Lopez-Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder for the July 1, 2015, shooting of Steinle while she was walking with her father on a city pier crowded with tourists.

Lopez-Sanchez said he was playing with a semi-automatic handgun he found when it accidentally fired, striking Steinle in the back and piercing her heart.

He told police he found the gun wrapped in a T-shirt underneath a bench shortly before Steinle was shot. The .40-caliber SIG Sauer P226 handgun was stolen a few days earlier from the car of a Bureau of Land Management agent.

The BLM is trying to block a subpoena ordering that agent to testify at the trial, Lopez-Sanchez lawyer Matt Gonzalez said Friday, arguing that a state court can't order a federal employee to testify.

The Department of Interior has said the lawyer must apply to the agency for permission to let the agent testify. The Department said it requires a detailed explanation for the agent's testimony, which Gonzalez opposes because he said it could divulge his trial strategy.

Gonzalez said his client fled extreme poverty in his native Mexico and has a second-grade education.

Jim Steinle and Liz Sullivan, the victim's parents, declined comment Thursday through their attorney Frank Pitre.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2015, Jim Steinle blamed "disjointed laws" and "basic incompetence on many levels" for his daughter's death.

"Our family realizes the complexity of immigration laws. However, we feel strongly that some legislation should be discussed, enacted or changed to take these undocumented felons off our streets for good," jIM Steinle told the committee.

President Donald Trump used the shooting during his campaign for the presidency to highlight his tough stance on illegal immigration, referring frequently to Steinle's death.

Days after the shooting, Trump called Steinle's death a "senseless and totally preventable act of violence" and was "yet another example of why we must secure our border."

Last month, at the urging of Trump, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill known as "Kate's Law" that would impose harsher prison sentences on deportees who re-enter the United States.

The House also passed another bill that would bar federal grants to sanctuary cities and allow victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants to sue those cities. Both bills await action in the Senate.

A federal judge in May tossed out a wrongful death lawsuit Steinle's family filed against San Francisco for releasing Lopez-Sanchez from jail.

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Illegal immigrant awaits trial in San Francisco pier killing - KCRA Sacramento