IMMIGRANT SANCTUARY LAWS SEEN AS PRACTICAL

San Francisco's 1989 sanctuary law grew out of the religious-based
sanctuary movement through which churches across the country offered
a safe haven to Central Americans who fled civil war and political
persecution but were unable to gain asylum in the United States.

For local governments, however, the motivation behind sanctuary
policies today has more to do with effective policing than
humanitarian impulses.

"Some police departments say ... 'We don't want our police officers
enforcing immigration law because if they do, victims and witnesses
of crimes won't cooperate with us,' " said Kevin Johnson, dean of the
UC Davis law school and an expert on immigration and civil rights law.

Last week, San Francisco's sanctuary ordinance came under fire after
The Chronicle revealed the Juvenile Probation Department's practice
of flying illegal immigrant teenagers convicted of drug offenses back
to their home countries or housing them in unlocked group homes.
Mayor Gavin Newsom denounced the practice, and city officials are now
working with federal immigration authorities to develop a new
approach for handling juvenile illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Legal analysts, city officials and immigrant advocates say San
Francisco's practice was not required - and not intended - by sanctuary laws.

Former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who is now a fellow at
the conservative Hoover Institution, was aghast at the San Francisco
Juvenile Probation Department's approach: "It's just incredible to
think they were spending all that money to help criminals evade being
deported," he said.

But he directed his officers not to cooperate with federal
immigration raids when he was chief from 1976 to 1991 and said the
policy played an important part in rebuilding community trust in the
department.

"There's a real debate going on nationally in police circles, but in
almost every large city I know of, police departments have the same
attitude: We have to work with these communities; we can't have them
viewing the police as the enemy because then you get this 'Don't
snitch' policy," McNamara said.

Richmond police spokesman Lt. Mark Gagan has said his department's
policy is not to investigate immigration status on its own but to
work with the federal office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
in dealing with violent criminals.

San Francisco is among scores of cities in California and around the
country with sanctuary laws, according to the National Immigration
Law Center. Several states also have such policies. The laws vary,
but most bar the use of local resources to enforce federal
immigration rules or prohibit police and other local officials from
questioning residents about their immigration status. They do
generally allow cooperation with federal immigration officials in
dealing with criminals.

San Francisco's "city of refuge" policy arose in the 1980s when the
United States was backing the governments of El Salvador and
Guatemala and didn't recognize most of the refugees from those
countries as having legitimate asylum claims.

Kathleen Healy, a nun with the Sisters of the Presentation, remembers
working with St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church to establish what is
believed to be San Francisco's first sanctuary church.

"We felt we were doing the right thing, even though we were warned we
could be arrested," she said. "We took three refugee women into our convent."

In 2007, faith leaders launched a new sanctuary movement geared
toward protecting today's undocumented immigrants, most of whom are
in the country for economic reasons.

A pledge drafted by the interfaith New Sanctuary Movement states in
part, "We are deeply grieved by the violence done to families through
immigration raids. We cannot in good conscience ignore such suffering
and injustice."

Federal law doesn't require local governments to report illegal
immigrants, but ICE officials encourage local and state law
enforcement to collaborate.

"We understand there may be policies and procedures at the local
level that affect the way that collaboration can occur," said ICE
spokeswoman Virginia Kice. "Our goal is to impress upon local
agencies the ways the community can benefit."

Federal immigration officials have been increasing their efforts to
screen jail and prison inmates to find people who may be deportable,
including both undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants who have
committed certain felonies.

Some local officials - from Florida state troopers to Maricopa
County, Ariz., sheriff's deputies - are getting training from federal
immigration authorities and being deputized to enforce immigration
law themselves.

"Why is it that some cities are sanctuary cities and some are tough
on immigrants? That reveals the ambivalence we have as a nation
toward immigrants of all sorts and undocumented immigrants
particularly," said Johnson, the UC Davis dean. "This is one of the
myriad issues that come up in immigration law that hopefully Congress
and the new president will take up in the near future.

"Sometimes you want a policy even if you don't like what the policy
is. I think the nation is yearning for a policy one way or another."

San Francisco's City of Refuge Ordinance

The ordinance reads, in part: "No department, agency, commission,
officer or employee of the City and County of San Francisco shall use
any City funds or resources to assist in the enforcement of federal
immigration law or to gather or disseminate information regarding the
immigration status of individuals in the City and County of San
Francisco unless such assistance is required by federal or State
statute, regulation or court decision."

The law was amended in 1992 to add: "Nothing in this Chapter shall
prohibit, or be construed as prohibiting, a law enforcement officer
from identifying and reporting any person pursuant to State an
federal law or regulation who is in custody after being booked for
the alleged commission of a felony and is suspected of violating the
civil provisions of the immigration laws."

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SANCTUARY LAWS

More than 80 U.S. cities or states have sanctuary laws. They range
widely from philosophical resolutions to more specific guidelines for
police conduct.

California Sanctuaries

Berkeley

East Palo Alto

Fresno

Garden Grove (Orange County)

Los Angeles

Oakland

Richmond

San Diego

San Francisco

San Jose

San Rafael

Santa Cruz

Watsonville

Sonoma County

U.S. Sanctuary Cities

(A partial list)

Anchorage, Alaska

Hartford, Conn.

Chicago

Portland, Maine

Baltimore

Boston

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Detroit

Minneapolis

St. Paul, Minn.

St. Louis

Newark, N.J.

New York

Philadelphia

Austin, Texas

Houston

Seattle

Madison, Wis.

Sanctuary States

Alaska

District of Columbia

Montana

New Mexico

Oregon

Source: National Immigration Law Center