Thread: S.F.: Feds, courts may step in if supes shield youths

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Feds, courts may step in if supes shield youths

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 10, 2009


San Francisco supervisors' effort to shield immigrant youths from deportation when they're arrested on felony charges comes to a head today when the board votes on an override of Mayor Gavin Newsom's veto - a vote Newsom says he'll disregard because the ordinance would violate federal law.

Supervisor David Campos' legislation has enough votes to pass. At that point, San Francisco will be at the center of a simmering nationwide legal debate over state and local government authority to depart from federal immigration policy, said Jayashri Srikantiah, a Stanford law professor and director of the school's Immigrants' Rights Clinic.

At one end of the spectrum, she said, are officers like Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz., who round up suspected illegal immigrants. At the other end are cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, which claim authority for protective policies.

The San Francisco dispute centers on a 1996 federal law that says state and local governments cannot prevent their employees from contacting U.S. authorities about a person's immigration status. That's just what Campos' ordinance appears to do by allowing the city to report juveniles to immigration officials only after they have been convicted of felonies.
Newsom-Herrera view

Newsom says Campos' measure is unenforceable, and City Attorney Dennis Herrera says there's a strong chance that a court would strike it down. But some law professors disagree, noting that the federal law doesn't actually require cities to turn in suspected illegal immigrants. The law, they say, wasn't intended to limit a local sanctuary policy like San Francisco's.

San Francisco's 1989 sanctuary ordinance bars police from arresting, stopping or questioning people based solely on their national origin or immigration status. The ordinance also forbids the use of city money to help enforce federal immigration law, except as required by U.S. or state law.

As recently as early 2008, city staff interpreted the policy as a prohibition on all reporting of minors to immigration officials, even after a conviction. But after The Chronicle reported that San Francisco was protecting youthful drug dealers from deportation, Newsom ordered juvenile court officers in July 2008 to turn suspected illegal immigrants over to federal authorities after they were arrested on felony charges.
Possible conflicts

Campos' ordinance, if passed, "imposes a new restriction on the authority of city employees to communicate with federal authorities about a juvenile's immigration status," Herrera's office said in an Aug. 18 memo to the mayor.

Although the issue is still unsettled, the memo said, there is a "serious risk" that a court would overturn the Campos ordinance, and perhaps the 1989 sanctuary law as well.

The city attorney said Campos' measure also could hamper efforts to settle a private lawsuit accusing San Francisco of violating a state law on reporting drug suspects to immigration officials. It might also expose city officials to criminal charges in a federal grand jury investigation into whether they knowingly transported or harbored illegal immigrants, the memo said.

To reduce the risk of a federal conflict, Herrera recommended that the city refrain from punishing employees who disregard Campos' ordinance.
Defending measure

On the other side of the debate, UC Davis law school Dean Kevin Johnson said he thought Campos' measure was consistent with federal law, which "has not imposed any reporting requirements on cities."

Johnson said the federal law was designed to let the federal government demand information from state and local authorities about specific individuals' immigration status, and not to require a city to report the information on its own.

"State and local governments don't necessarily know what someone's immigration status is," and by requiring such reports, "you open the door to racial profiling," Johnson said. The federal government has never challenged policies in Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco that limit disclosure of immigration information, he said.

Srikantiah, the Stanford professor, said the city would have a strong case for refusing to volunteer information on the immigration status of juveniles, whose records are confidential.

"The city routinely keeps juvenile information confidential," Srikantiah said. "Requiring the city to turn over those records to the federal government would run afoul of those confidentiality protections."

www.sfgate.com

The Supreme Court's Plenary Power's Doctrine trumps all of these arguments that seek to restrict immigration law enforcement. BY pulling out the "racial profiling" card as a contravening policy is based upon ignorance of the acceptability of profiling in criminal investigation. We know most illegal immigrants are from Latin America, thus it is sensible to question suspects based upon their ethnicity.

San Francisco can not make policies that tell federal officers what they can or cannot do, as long as they are acting within the bounds of their duties.

The federal government has never challenged policies in Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco that limit disclosure of immigration information, he said.

It's about time they did!

Potential San Francisco Showdown Over Immigration

By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: November 10, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Setting up a potential showdown with the mayor, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors reinstated an ordinance on Tuesday requiring that juvenile offenders who are illegal immigrants be convicted of a crime before they are turned over to the federal immigration authorities.

The ordinance had been passed by the board in October but was quickly vetoed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who said that it very likely conflicted with federal immigration law. On Tuesday, the board overrode that veto on an 8-to-3 vote.

But the mayor says that he has no intention of abiding by the board’s action and that the current policy of turning over juveniles at the time of their arrest would stay in place.

“This ship cannot sail,â€

San Francisco board overrides mayor's veto of sanctuary expansion

It upholds an ordinance barring local authorities from turning juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless guilty of a felony.

By Maria L. La Ganga

November 11, 2009


Reporting from San Francisco - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to override a recent veto by Mayor Gavin Newsom and expand the city's controversial sanctuary policy.

The board was greeted by raucous applause after it voted 8 to 3 to uphold a recent ordinance that would bar local authorities from handing juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless they have been found guilty of a felony.

The board's action Tuesday was the latest volley in a fight over the responsibility of local government to enforce federal immigration law.

Twenty years ago, San Francisco enacted a "city of refuge ordinance" that barred city money from being used to enforce immigration law and prohibited authorities from stopping people based solely on their immigration status or country of origin.

Authorities did, however, hand adults over to federal officials if they had been arrested on felony charges and their immigration status was in question.

But in 2008, after published reports that the ordinance was actually protecting young undocumented offenders from deportation, Newsom changed the policy. He required that undocumented juveniles be treated like adults and referred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they were simply charged with a felony.

In reaction, Supervisor David Campos sponsored the ordinance to shore up the sanctuary policy. It passed Oct. 27 and was promptly vetoed by Newsom.

San Francisco is not the only big city in America with policies that prohibit law enforcement agents from inquiring about the immigration status of victims, witnesses or suspects, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law.

Los Angeles and New York also have such policies, said Johnson, who specializes in immigration law.

In fact, before the San Francisco supervisors voted to override Newsom's veto, Campos read from a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece by then-Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton recounting how an undocumented immigrant cooperated with police officers after witnessing a murder.

"Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police," Campos said, reading from Bratton's article, "an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer."

But Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said that regardless of Tuesday's vote, San Francisco's policy would not change because the action by the supervisors went against federal law. According to the U.S. Code, local governments are not allowed to prohibit officials from reporting information about anyone's immigration status to the federal government.

"The supervisors knew that this amendment was unenforceable," Ballard said, "and yet they plowed ahead with it in order to make a political statement."

Shortly after the vote, City Atty. Dennis Herrera wrote to the U.S. attorney's office asking for assurances that San Francisco law enforcement officers would not be prosecuted on federal criminal charges if they comply with the change in the sanctuary policy upheld by the supervisors.

If no such assurances are forthcoming, Herrera wrote, he would consider going to U.S. District Court to seek a ruling on whether the amendment to the sanctuary ordinance is allowed under federal law.

U.S. Atty. Joseph P. Russoniello said in an interview Tuesday that "we don't and can never make assurances to anyone that we would not prosecute a case. It depends on all the evidence and whether we can obtain a conviction."

maria.laganga@latimes.com


Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 4533.story