City Shields Illegal Immigrant Criminals From Feds

A well-known sanctuary city in California has for years protected illegal immigrant criminals from federal authorities by spending millions of taxpayer dollars to escort them back to their home country or house them in unlocked group homes that they easily escape from.

For more than a generation San Francisco officials have shielded juvenile illegal immigrant lawbreakers from federal authorities even when they are convicted of serious crimes. The offenders are either taken back to their country or housed in unsecured facilities in other parts of the state on the public’s dime.

U.S. taxpayers have paid $2.3 million to house 162 criminal illegal immigrant youths since 2005 and nearly $40,000 to fly numerous others to their home countries of Honduras, American Samoa and Mexico since 2006. The mission of officials in the notoriously liberal Bay Area city is to keep federal authorities from deporting the offenders.

But this week the criminal illegal alien protection plan backfired when a southern California county threatened to sue San Francisco for shipping eight Honduran youths convicted of narcotics offenses to an area group home without notifying local officials. In their late teens, the offenders escaped from the San Bernardino County facility in Yucaipa igniting outrage among officials and residents alike.

San Bernardino officials say the placement of the juveniles violates a state law that requires the receiving county be notified when out of area offenders are placed in their jurisdiction. San Bernardino’s chief probation officer said the county placing the youths must supply the receiving county with names, offenses and prior history as well as the address of the facility. “San Francisco had not only a legal obligation but a moral obligation to notify us,” the official said.

This is hardly the first time San Francisco wastes taxpayer dollars in the name of its sanctuary policy which dates back to 1989 and prohibits city employees from helping federal immigration authorities with investigations or arrests. A few months ago the city launched a costly bilingual advertisement campaign to assure its estimated 40,000 illegal immigrants that they can benefit from services such as public clinics, libraries and schools without fear of being reported to federal immigration authorities.

In a highly touted press release announcing the ad campaign, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom reminds illegal immigrants living in his city that they are safe from the feds and free to use all U.S. taxpayer-financed services. The promotion fails to mention however, that the mayor, who has aspirations of becoming governor, keeps his city safe from criminal illegal aliens by shipping them off to other parts of the state.