San Francisco to Stop Detaining Arrested Immigrants for Deportation

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

San Francisco, one of the first sanctuary cities in the nation, plans to end its cooperation with federal immigration officials and start releasing illegal immigrants arrested for minor offenses before they can be picked up for deportation.

The city's decision is the latest development in a tug of war between several communities and the federal government over its controversial national program that automatically checks the immigration status of arrestees.

Officials in jurisdictions including Providence, R.I., and Chicago have also challenged the program, which they say undermines trust that it has taken local law enforcement years to build in immigrant communities.

California and Illinois lawmakers are considering measures to let communities retreat from the so-called "Secure Communities" program, which links up the FBI's criminal database and the Department of Homeland Security's records so that every time someone is arrested their immigration status is automatically, electronically checked.

Washington state has deferred to local governments on whether they want to join program overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

But their efforts could be thwarted as federal officials argue that states have no control over what information is shared among federal agencies.

In the absence of a nationwide fix on immigration, the tension between states and the federal government has been simmering in recent years. In the last four years, states have passed a flurry of bills and resolutions on issues ranging from employer verification to access to driver's licenses, most notably Arizona's tough local immigration enforcement law.

Immigrant advocates have lambasted ICE's fingerprint sharing program for sweeping up crime victims and witnesses who are arrested during an investigation in addition to those accused of committing a crime. About 29 percent of the 102,000 immigrants deported under the program since it began in 2008 have no criminal conviction, according to federal government statistics.

Between October 2008 and March 2011, more than 7 million people who have been arrested have had their fingerprints run through the ICE program. Roughly 197,000 were identified as suspected illegal immigrants, and nearly 40 percent of those were in California, according to statistics provided by ICE.

In San Francisco, Sheriff Michael Hennessey told the San Francisco Examiner he is making the change effective June 1 to comply with the city's sanctuary ordinance.

The law, which has caused tension between local and federal authorities, prohibits officials from assisting ICE in cases that do not involve felonies.

The city currently keeps low-level offenders ICE has identified as illegal immigrants through fingerprints until immigration officials collect them. The Examiner reports that 111 inmates were detained for deportation between last June and February.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told the newspaper that Hennessey's decision was unfortunate.
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Yet another reason not to visit SF...

[Pepper]

San Francisco, one of the first sanctuary cities in the nation, plans to end its cooperation with federal immigration officials and start releasing illegal immigrants arrested for minor offenses before they can be picked up for deportation.

 

Libs / Holder / Incompetano / Obama secretly applaud

 

 

Let's flip that sentence:

 

 

Arizona, one the most affected border states in the nation, plans to engage in full cooperation with federal immigration officials and also enforce federal immigration law so that illegal immigrants arrested for minor offenses can be picked up for deportation.

 

but Libs / Holder / Incompetano / Obama scream foul