Board of Supervisors approved resolution to protect sanctuary status.
By Raif Karerat
Officials have determined that San Francisco will remain an immigration-related sanctuary city, despite sustaining criticism after a woman was killed by a Mexican national who was in the United States illegally.
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday that urges the sheriff not to participate in a detainer-notification system that asks jails to let Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials know when an inmate of interest is being released, reported the Associated Press.
The city had been under pressure from critics of its policies on immigrants after Kathryn Steinle, 32, a tourist from Pleasanton, Calif., was fatally shot in the chest in July while walking with her father along San Fancisco’s storied waterfront.
The man accused of the shooting, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, is an unauthorized immigrant who has been deported to Mexico five times for various felonies, including drug charges, and had been released from a San Francisco jail shortly before the killing, according to the New York Times.
“All of us in this room agree that the death of Kathryn Steinle was senseless and tragic, but what many of us disagree on is the role — if any — that San Francisco’s existing sanctuary and due-process-for-all” ordinances played in the event, Supervisor Malia Cohen said to cheers from the crowd that gathered for the meeting.
Critics of the decision, such as Roy Beck, director of anti-immigration organization NumbersUSA, find it “frightening” that supervisors sided with immigrants who are in the country illegally “rather than public safety.”
San Francisco established itself as a sanctuary city in 1989 when it passed an ordinance that bans city officials from enforcing immigration laws or asking about immigration status unless required by law or court order. A follow-up ordinance in 2013 allows detention only under a court order targeting violent felons.