San Francisco is well known for its status as a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. But that may change as the city faces a two-fold crisis.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has requested a waiver to the sanctuary city designation so she can arrest two non-citizens suspected of violent crime. The two have fled the country but have been found by the Department of Homeland Security.
According to Jenkins, one was wanted in connection with a 2009 domestic violence murder. The other had multiple warrants for child sexual abuse.
“What we can’t allow in San Francisco are for people to commit heinous crimes like murder or child rape and then just be able to flee our jurisdiction and avoid prosecution,” Jenkins said.
More exceptions could be on the way as fentanyl continues to kill a staggering number of overdose victims in the city. Investigators believe that a significant percentage of people selling drugs in San Francisco–as many as half–are undocumented immigrants.
Proposed legislation would deny sanctuary to adults who have been convicted of a fentanyl-dealing felony within the past seven years and re-arrested for another fentanyl-dealing crime or violent felony crime.
“It is time to withdraw the protection of sanctuary from undocumented immigrants trafficking fentanyl on our streets,” San Francisco City Supervisor Matt Dorsey said.
Last year, the San Francisco Police Department seized about 144 pounds of fentanyl from drug dealers in the city’s famous Tenderloin neighborhood.
