A critical issue that has faced the United States homeland for many decades is how to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Many U.S. cities have taken the issue into their own hands and have had their city police deal effectively with the immigrants. Yet, there are some cities that have taken the opposite path and have had their city labeled a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants. San Francisco is a leader in this immigration policy. The very liberal city by the Bay enacted the sanctuary policy in 1989 under the City of Refuge ordinance, which outlines all the prohibitions against cooperating with the federal government concerning illegal immigrants.
San Francisco has been the biggest promoter of the sanctuary status symbol, advertising the city as a place where an illegal can come to escape the federal government. However, this past summer’s escape of more than eight juvenile Honduran illegal drug runners and the murder of a father and his two sons by a convicted illegal immigrant exemplify the ineffectiveness of San Francisco’s sanctuary policy.
The mishap with the young Honduran drug runners stems from a 1992 amendment to the city’s immigration policy which allows for cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with regards to adult criminal illegal immigrants, but not for juvenile illegal felons. Until last May, San Francisco was using public tax dollars to fly young drug runners back to their homes in South America, but stopped after strong objections from the federal government. Therefore, Mayor Newsom’s office this past summer sent the juveniles to group home facilities in San Bernardino County, but after only a few weeks, more than eight of the illegal immigrants had escaped. This situation shows that the city of San Francisco has cared more about opposing the federal government’s immigration policy than prosecuting juvenile illegal felons. It is sadly believable that the San Francisco government would go to such great lengths to protect the Honduran drug runners, using tax dollars to make sure the Hondurans were not caught by the federal government.
Yet, the tragic event that has put even greater pressure on the city of San Francisco was the June murder of a father and his two sons by an illegal felon. That illegal immigrant was Edwin Ramos, a suspected member of the Salvadorian MS-13 gang. According to an article by Time Magazine, “San Francisco police say Ramos opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle, killing Bologna and his two sons, Michael and Matthew, who were driving home from a family barbecue. “ The illegal immigrant had been previously convicted on crimes in the city when he was a juvenile in 2003. Yet, because of the San Francisco policy of not alerting the federal government about juvenile illegals, he was able to roam free on the city streets after a short jail sentence. This great tragedy could have been avoided if San Francisco had decided to put the safety of U.S. citizens first, rather than trying to protect young illegal immigrants from deportation. What’s more troubling is that Mrs. Bologna has not been able to talk to Mayor Newsom about her family’s deaths. The Mayor probably knows that the deaths were unnecessary, but is too ashamed to speak to Mrs. Bologna.
The combination of the escape of the Honduran drug runners and the murder of Mr. Bologna and his two sons has placed much pressure on the city of San Francisco to change its sanctuary policies. The city has recently taken a positive step towards making a more effective immigration policy by alerting the federal government when a juvenile illegal immigrant is convicted of a crime. After the tragic events of the summer unfolded and revealed the holes in the city’s policies, Mayor Newsom replied that the city would be working with the feds in pursuit of convicted young illegal immigrants. While the Mayor’s talk of cooperating sounds optimistic, we are hesitant to believe that the city government will be in full compliance with the federal government’s actions towards illegal felons. The city of San Francisco does not have a good record on complying with federal policies, whether it’s on immigration, narcotics, or crime.
Furthermore, while the city’s decision to comply with the federal government on illegal juvenile felons is a correct move, San Francisco still needs to do more to improve the immigration issue. The city remains a sanctuary city because they will not work with the feds on non-criminal illegal immigrants. The irony of their stance is that the illegal immigrants have already committed a crime by living in the U.S. without citizenship or a green card. But, the city of San Francisco does not believe that crossing the border illegally is an important problem and the city government continues to go to great lengths to welcome the immigrants into their city. Therefore, the next step the city of San Francisco needs to take is to remove their sanctuary city status. Yet, it is very unlikely that the city will remove its status while Mayor Newsom is in office.
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