SF’s Long History as a Sanctuary City Faces Renewed Challenges Under Trump

A major component of President Donald Trump’s approach to cracking down on immigration focuses on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions — cities, counties and states that have laws or policies restricting local officials from helping with immigration enforcement.

At least 13 states and hundreds of cities and counties nationwide have policies that set rules on how and when local police can assist federal authorities with immigration actions. Supporters argue the policies keep communities safe by ensuring that immigrants feel comfortable reporting crimes and cooperating with law enforcement.

While Trump’s political rise has forced this debate to the forefront, sanctuary laws and policies are not new, and some are decades old. However, they are facing renewed scrutiny in both courts and public opinion because of Trump’s aggressive stance against them.

Since he took office on Jan. 20, Trump has issued an executive order directing the federal government to cut off funding for sanctuary cities, counties and states. The Department of Justice issued two memos instructing federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute local officials who don’t actively assist in immigration enforcement. Additionally, the Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Illinois and New York, challenging their sanctuary laws.

Sanctuary jurisdictions have also gone on the offensive, with San Francisco and Santa Clara counties leading a lawsuit challenging the administration’s actions.

Here’s how we got here in San Francisco, which was among the first places to enact sanctuary policies and laws.

How did sanctuary policies emerge?

Sanctuary policies arose in the 1980s in response to civil wars in Central America and refugees fleeing war-torn countries in the region. Berkeley was the first to have one in the Bay Area, followed by San Francisco. Initially, these were either policy statements passed by lawmakers without legal teeth behind them or simply police agency policies. Eventually, many were passed into law.

Then-President Ronald Reagan’s administration refused to recognize Central American migrants as asylum seekers. Federal immigration authorities would regularly show up at jails to look at records and question incarcerated people.

How did San Francisco become a sanctuary city?

The pivotal moment occurred in 1989 when San Francisco police officers joined federal immigration authorities to raid a Mission District dance club, Club Elegante. Dozens of people were detained for hours, some of them American citizens, and it sparked a political firestorm. Later that year, the city’s sanctuary ordinance was passed into law.

Has there always been support for these policies in San Francisco?

Generally, yes, but there have been moments of controversy, including after a horrific triple murder in 2008 when Gov. Gavin Newsom was San Francisco’s mayor. An undocumented gang member gunned down Tony Bologna and two of his children in a case of mistaken identity.

The shooter, Edwin Ramos, had previously been convicted of several violent felonies as a minor, but city officials didn’t turn him over to immigration officials because, at the time, San Francisco had a policy never to hand over juveniles.

The ensuing political outrage, including national attention, prompted Newsom to change city policy and begin turning over undocumented juveniles merely accused of felonies, a move that sparked backlash in the broader community and at City Hall.

The Board of Supervisors ultimately passed a law clarifying only juveniles convicted of a felony should be handed over. (Current state law mandates that anyone convicted of serious or violent crime can be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement from prisons and jails; thousands have been in recent years.)

Another tragic case in 2015 again focused attention on San Francisco when 32-year-old Kate Steinle was fatally shot as she walked along an Embarcadero pier. Her accused killer, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had previously been deported five times and had just been released from San Francisco County Jail when the shooting occurred. He was acquitted of murder.

Although federal officials blamed San Francisco’s sanctuary policy in both cases, evidence shows immigration officials were aware of both men and could have deported them. Lopez-Sanchez was in federal custody before authorities transferred him to San Francisco to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge, a relatively minor offense. And the gun he used was stolen from a federal park ranger who had left it in his car.

Federal authorities decided not to deport Ramos because they were trying to build a larger case around gang activity. Additionally, Ramos had applied for legal status, so they knew his whereabouts.

Did the controversies result in San Francisco changing its law?

There were attempts to tighten city law, but the 10 amendments to San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance made it even harder for local officials to cooperate with ICE.

Most of those changes were initiated not in response to a Republican administration in Washington, D.C., but to policies rolled out under former Democratic President Barack Obama. Most of the pushback focused on a program called “Secure Communities,” which automatically sent the fingerprints of every person booked into a jail to immigration officials so they could check their legal status.

It also allowed ICE to send requests to local jails to hold undocumented immigrants after they qualified for release. Some counties ignored the requests and sued. In 2014, a federal appeals court ruled that jails could be legally liable for violating someone’s civil rights against unlawful detention since the requests were not legally binding warrants.

In response to Secure Communities, San Francisco passed a law in 2013 that limits the city’s cooperation with ICE to cases involving violent felons. A similar law was passed at the state level around the same time.

In 2016, though, the city passed another law making it slightly easier for local officials to cooperate with ICE. The law lets the sheriff notify immigration officials about an incarcerated person accused of a violent felony if the person was convicted of a violent or serious felony in the past seven years and if a judge decides there’s probable cause for the current charge.

What’s at stake now?

Sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco believe the law is on their side and that constitutional provisions will protect them from the Trump administration’s attacks. Currently, the debate is largely playing out in court, with lawsuits pending in California, Illinois and New York.

Read more about the history of San Francisco’s sanctuary laws here.