Immigration a hot issue in state races
Joe Garofoli,Drew Joseph, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, July 30, 2010

Even as a federal judge blocked some of the more controversial portions of a new Arizona immigration law this week, its political reverberations - and those of other immigration issues - are shaking California's statewide races.

Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is using the example of the Arizona policy to argue against places like San Francisco that have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants.

Under its 1989 policy, San Francisco law officers report felony suspects to federal immigration officials only if their legal status can't be readily confirmed.

But Fiorina said that if the U.S. Department of Justice is going to challenge Arizona for trying to create its own immigration policy that deviates from the federal policy, then the agency should be consistent and also crack down on sanctuary cities.

Consistency questioned
"If the federal government wants to take the point of view that the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder seem to be taking, which is all immigration issues are federal government issues and therefore we will challenge any authority, then they ought to be applying that standard consistently, and they clearly are not," Fiorina told KPIX.

But legal analysts say sanctuary city policies aren't at all similar to an entire state creating its own immigration policy.

First, the term "sanctuary cities" is not a definitive legal term, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis Law School. Each city - including more than a dozen in California - defines its sanctuary policies differently.

"It's apples and oranges," Johnson said. "There's no city that's saying 'We're not cooperating with the federal government on immigration enforcement.' It's just different levels of cooperation. San Francisco is cooperating. I don't understand what (Fiorina) is talking about other than to use slanted political jargon to make political impact."

And while sanctuary cities do not conform to federal standards, federal officials can still enter a city and enforce their immigration policies, said Richard Boswell, a professor of immigration law at UC Hastings College of the Law.

This week, immigration activists on the left used the Arizona law to challenge Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown on a different front.

Many groups believe that a federal program newly introduced to San Francisco called Secure Communities inspires the same distrust between immigrant communities and law enforcement that the Arizona law would have caused.

Fingerprint database
Developed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, Secure Communities requires states to forward the fingerprints of people who are booked into county jails so that ICE agents can check the prints against their database of people known to be in the country illegally, including those with criminal records.

While Secure Communities does not prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining education and health care in the city, it violates other aspects of the sanctuary city designation, critics said.

"Instead of being called Secure Communities, it should be called Terrorized Communities," Guillermina Castellanos of La Colectiva de Mujeres said at a San Francisco rally this week against the program.

Brown refused to let San Francisco opt out of the program, despite opposition from the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Michael Hennessey. Brown wrote to Hennessey that the program "serves both public safety and the interest of justice."

Criminal records
Supporters of Secure Communities, which took effect in San Francisco on June 8, say it prevents people from being released before their criminal record is uncovered and going on to commit other crimes.

"Accordingly, identifying criminals is not simply a local issue, but has statewide significance," said Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office.

"There are already indications that the Secure Communities program is working in San Francisco by uncovering serious criminals," Gasparac said.

Nationally, only 9 percent of people whose prints matched records in ICE's database were charged with serious crimes, according to a San Francisco Police Commission audit of federal figures for the year that ended in October. That same audit found that 5 percent of all detainees - 5,880 people - were actually U.S. citizens who were mistakenly held.

Politically, Brown's support for the program could fuel criticism by his more liberal supporters.

While Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, said at the rally this week that it is important to vote for Brown for governor, San Francisco Supervisor David Campos threatened that Latino and immigrant voters would pull their support if he does not change his position.

www.sfgate.com