Marisa Lagos [00:01:07] So in the 1980s, there was a number of Central American countries, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, who were wrapped up in civil wars. A lot of people were fleeing to the United States and seeking refugee status. The Reagan administration, Ronald Reagan was in the White House at the time, refused to recognize these folks as asylum seekers.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:45] Was the city then at the time like openly collaborating with federal immigration agents like all the time?
Marisa Lagos [00:01:53] You know, it was normal for federal immigration officials to show up at the county jail, ask to just look through the records of who was there. From what I’ve talked to folks who were in the sheriff’s department and around during that time, it sounds like there was sort of this open door policy into the jails. And then there was a moment in 1989 that really sort of changed the entire dynamic here in San Francisco.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:17] And that turning point moment was this immigration raid that happened at a dance club in the Mission known as Club Elegante. What was Club Elegante?
Marisa Lagos [00:02:28] So this was like a Latin dance club in the Mission. It was a super popular spot for folks to go on the weekends and blow off steam.
Tom Ammiano [00:02:36] You know, you get your paycheck on Friday and you want to go, you know, have a little fun or whatever.
Marisa Lagos [00:02:43] Tom Amiano was a longtime politician in San Francisco, and I spoke to him about what was going on in San Francisco in the 1980s, back in 2017.
Tom Ammiano [00:02:53] It was really a place where I think a lot of people were undocumented, you know, especially people maybe associated with the day laborers. And when it happened, you could hear the sirens and the activity, but one one really didn’t know what was it, you know, what was what was really happening.
Marisa Lagos [00:03:17] There was a joint raid between the federal government and local police in which they essentially came into this club on a busy weekend night and took, I think, most everyone there into custody.
Tom Ammiano [00:03:31] Our police, they went in there and they roughed up a lot of people. And I think they busted some people who were citizens. You know, it was obvious that this was a big snafu that should have never happened. And I think it was what ignited that sleeping giant.
Marisa Lagos [00:03:50] So it was a really huge moment in the city, and it was something that people were very much aware of. It made a lot of headlines and sparked a lot of anger.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:00] I mean, I can’t even imagine something like that happening today in San Francisco. That would just be insane. And I guess how did we go from this raid at Club Elegante to city leaders starting to to really talk seriously about the sanctuary policies and what was their rationale at the time?
Marisa Lagos [00:04:29] Some of them actually came out of law enforcement. Like the police themselves were saying, hey, if we’re being deputized to essentially do the job of the federal government, we are undermining our ability to build trust with these immigrant communities.
Tom Ammiano [00:04:46] There were demands made on the mayor. And what are you going to do? What is the solution?
Marisa Lagos [00:04:51] When this Club Elegante raid happened and there was such huge outcry and fear in the immigrant community, it really created a lot of political momentum and pressure on City Hall and on the police chief, Frank Jordan, to figure out a way to kind of thread this needle. Because it’s not just about someone who’s undocumented being scared to come to the police, although certainly it’s that. But if you are a citizen or a legal resident, but your neighbor is not, or your uncle or your spouse, like a crime happens to you, are you going to be willing to go to the police if you know that they might actually call federal immigration enforcement? And so by the end of that year, they had written and passed the sanctuary policy.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:42] What exactly do San Francisco’s first sanctuary policies look like? And I guess what was passed as a result of this raid?
Marisa Lagos [00:05:51] Yeah, the original sanctuary ordinance was really straightforward. It basically just said city employees may not use city funds or resources to help federal immigration enforcement. We won’t stand in the way because that would be illegal, but we’re not going to participate in immigration actions as a local police force.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:20] It’s sort of interesting to think of sanctuary policies being really a result of pushes by local law enforcement.
Marisa Lagos [00:06:28] But I do think when you have people in law enforcement, I mean, who are part of, let’s be real, that political system and they’re hearing the same thing and they’re seeing the impact on their ability to investigate and solve crimes, which is the main sort of core function of a local police department. You know, I think often there are disagreements around the nuance and details of these things. But I think that over the years, there has been a fair amount of support within police agencies for these sorts of things.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:20] I mean, for I guess as long as I’ve lived now, San Francisco has always been a sanctuary city, but has there always been support for this policy or these policies in San Francisco?
Marisa Lagos [00:07:33] Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. I was not here in the 1990s, but that was an era where there was a lot of sort of backlash to immigration in California, right? This was an era when Prop 187 was passed statewide, which sought to take any public resources and benefits away from folks without legal status. But it really wasn’t until the 2000s that we saw some really high profile criminal cases that kind of brought the sanctuary policy back into the forefront in San Francisco.
Marisa Lagos [00:08:12] The first one was a really tragic triple murder. A man and his two sons were driving in San Francisco in June of 2008, and they were shot by a man who turned out was a gang member and an undocumented immigrant, and it was a case of mistaken identity. This was the first real example in recent years that we saw the right really seize on these policies and really go after San Francisco. The widow of the man, Tony Bologna, who died, you know, went on Fox News and was on Laura Ingraham talking about this. They really made a connection between these sanctuary policies and this murder because the accused shooter, Edwin Ramos, had been convicted of two violent felonies when he was a juvenile. The federal government knew exactly who this person was, Edwin Ramos. He had applied for legal status, so he was in their system. They knew where he lived and what he was doing. And there’s evidence that shows that they had actively sort of chosen not to deport him because they were trying to build a bigger gang case against him and other folks. But because under the current policy at the time, there was like no mechanism to hand over youths to immigration officials, it really sort of focused attention on the sanctuary policy, and at the time, now Governor Gavin Newsom was the mayor here in San Francisco, and ended up in a lot of pressure to try to figure out kind of how to answer this political firestorm.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:06] Right. And he did respond to that pressure by actually making some changes to San Francisco sanctuary policy at the time.
Marisa Lagos [00:10:16] Yeah. And what we saw at the time was a sort of, I think maybe what some might argue, I don’t know, maybe even the governor was like maybe an overcorrection. He essentially kind of unilaterally, as the head official in the city, changed the policy so that any undocumented kid merely accused of a felony was handed over to immigration officials. And that in itself caused sort of a backlash. Within a year, the city turned over more than 100 young people to immigration and customs enforcement. And eventually, a year later, the board of supervisors came back to table and amended the city law to say, look, we’re not going to just turn people over who have been accused of felonies and are undocumented young people. So much of the attention, if you were here at the time, was focused on Newsom and Democrats and their policies. And very little attention was given to the mistakes that were, quite frankly, pretty obviously made by immigration officials. If you’re going to say, like, we could have, would have, should have, I don’t think you can only blame the city policies. I think you have to look at the actions of the feds as well.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:23] Right. Although that’s that’s what usually happens is that it’s the local measures that get all the attention. Right. And I feel like another big case that really put San Francisco’s sanctuary policies in the spotlight again was, and I remember this case very vividly, the 2015 fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, which I just remember being just like all over national news at the time.
Marisa Lagos [00:11:52] Yeah. And that, again, was a horribly tragic event. This is a young woman, 32 years old, walking along the San Francisco waterfront on Embarcadero Pier and she is shot. The case was very complicated. The accused killer, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, had stolen the gun used in this case from a federal park ranger who had left it unsecured in his car. Lopez Sanchez maintained throughout the entire trial it was an accidental firing of the gun. But, you know, at the core of this, again, was these questions over why he was still in the U .S. He had been deported five times before this. The shooting occurred right after he got out of San Francisco County jail. And again, that’s what a lot of folks seized on, especially critics of the sanctuary policy. Why didn’t San Francisco hand over this known felon to immigration officials?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:51] So, Marisa, I mean, it’s pretty clear San Francisco’s sanctuary status has been challenged repeatedly since the 1980s. And of course, we’re talking about this now because we’re in another one of those moments with President Donald Trump, you know, really challenging California sanctuary status and the sanctuary statuses of other municipalities and states. Tell me a little bit more about what that current fight looks like now
Marisa Lagos [00:13:20] The first time Trump was president, his administration went after sanctuary cities threatening to withhold funding from them. They have essentially dusted off almost identical language and issued a series of executive orders and memos out of D .C. that seek to do exactly what they tried to do the first time, which is essentially say either drop these policies, help us with immigration enforcement, or we’re going to cut off federal funds. And so San Francisco and Santa Clara, along with some other jurisdictions around the nation, have sued. And I think, you know, we’re going to see this really play out in court. The city feels very strongly that they have the Constitution and the law on their side.
David Chiu [00:14:06] It’s not clear from the executive order what they mean by a sanctuary city.
Marisa Lagos [00:14:11] What David Chiu, the city attorney, says is that they are illegally asserting a right and commandeering local law enforcement for something that is not the city’s job.
David Chiu [00:14:23] One of the aspects of our lawsuit points out that you have to be clear when you lay out rules and it violates due process if you don’t have clarity. My hope is they would look at facts and the studies that show that building trust with communities help to reduce crime, to improve public safety. That is what this is about.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:46] This is not the first time San Francisco is facing a challenge of its sanctuary status and policies. But why do you think that looking back at this long history and even the origins of San Francisco sanctuary policy is so important?
