Sanctuary city Gavin Newsom {mayor of San Francisco.}
Sanctuary city
Gavin Newsom
Friday, August 8, 2008
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In 1985, San Francisco became one of the first cities in America to address a dangerous local consequence of America's failed immigration policy. City leaders at the time saw that undocumented residents were refusing to come forward to report or testify as witnesses to crimes, thereby endangering both themselves and the entire community.
Since then, hundreds of cities and towns from Miami to Seattle, and from Denver to Dallas to Detroit, have joined what is now known as the "sanctuary city" movement in order to create a climate where residents, regardless of immigration status, can feel free to call the police or fire department, or take a sick child to the hospital, without fear of deportation.
Even cities that don't officially call themselves sanctuary cities, like Houston or Los Angeles, have policies in place that encourage undocumented residents to come forward to report crimes without fear of deportation.
In June, a tragic triple homicide allegedly committed by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco put sanctuary-city policies across the nation under the microscope. The bereaved family of the victims is asking, as any of us would ask in the same circumstances, if these senseless murders could have been prevented had we taken a tougher line on deporting undocumented residents.
There were several failures in this tragedy. To learn from them and prevent future tragedies, we need to address them.
First, the lack of coordination between local and federal law enforcement should certainly cause us to challenge criminal justice authorities, and us, to enforce our laws more vigorously. In March, the suspect, a reported member of a well-known gang, was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department and booked into County Jail on weapons charges. The sheriff reports that he referred the suspect to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as is our procedure under the sanctuary-city policy, although ICE says it was not notified until after the suspect was released. On a monthly basis, the sheriff refers to ICE some 80 to 100 undocumented individuals arrested for felonies. During the last 18 months alone, he has turned over to ICE 1,100 such persons accused of felonies. In this particular case, the suspect was not picked up by ICE, he was not charged by prosecutors, and he was released from jail. The system failed.
Second, The Chronicle has reported that the suspect had also been released in 2004 from a San Francisco juvenile-detention facility. At the time, the long-standing policy of our city was to turn adult offenders over to ICE, but not juvenile offenders. I directed the city's Juvenile Probation Department to change that policy when I learned of it in May because I felt it violated the intent of a sanctuary city, which is to promote cooperation by undocumented residents with law enforcement, not to harbor criminals. I changed the policy before these terrible slayings, but the change came too late.
Since then, I have initiated an intensive, top-to-bottom review of every one of our sanctuary-city policies to make sure they are working as intended, and are not subject to interpretations or applications that put public safety at risk. I have taken these actions because, no matter how old or well-intentioned any city policy or procedure, we simply can't be afraid to take responsibility for and correct errors when public safety is at stake.
I have already implemented significant changes in how the city handles undocumented juvenile felons. When the comprehensive review I have ordered is complete, I will not hesitate to make further amendments to the policy. But we must always keep in mind that the underlying purpose of the sanctuary-city policy, going back nearly 30 years and encompassing five San Francisco mayors, is to protect public safety.
Gavin Newsom is the mayor of San Francisco.
This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1275E9.DTL
