San Francisco's sanctuary city policy and juvenile immigrant deportation

Illegal Immigrants

Towards the Deportation of Young Illegal Immigrants

During the third quarter 2008, San Francisco's sanctuary city policy was subjected to public scrutiny due to the discovery that the Juvenile Probation Department has been shielding illegal immigrants involved in crack dealing. The probation chief flew these people home (to Honduras, Mexico, and El Salvador) - all at taxpayers' expense instead of simply deporting them. Upon the discovery of this action by federal immigration officials, the probation chief sent them to group homes (where after several days they all ran off) - at, again, the expense of San Francisco's tax-paying citizens (Tyler, 2008). Just a month after this news broke out, the news on the murder of a father and his two sons by a gang member, who was shielded from deportation, made it to headlines of newspapers and television news (KTVU.com, 2008).

Needless to say, San Francisco is now faced with issues and debates surrounding its city sanctuary policy. We do not need growing numbers of serious crimes committed by young illegal immigrants just for us to move in resolving this issue. The very existence of a number of serious crimes is enough for us to act upon this situation. It is in this context that this paper argues that instead of shielding young illegal immigrants who committed serious crimes, a move towards the deportation of these juvenile felons should be enforced.

The City's Sanctuary Policy Factor

The objective of San Francisco's sanctuary policy, which was adopted in 1989, is to let "the otherwise law-abiding residents know that they could report crimes to the police, send their children to school, and see a doctor" (Saunders, 2008, par. 7).This paper argues that the sanctuary policy's objective was there for all the right reasons - its humanitarian dimension is highly justified. It seeks to tolerate diversity and allows, to a certain extent, one to exercise basic human rights. But crimes after crimes being committed by illegal immigrants in the city lead to much thoughtful consideration. Indeed, we can say that something has gone wrong with the city's sanctuary policy, i.e. its existence has gone beyond its original functions. The interpretation of the city's sanctuary policy has been erroneous. It is through this very policy that the Justice Probation Department has decided to shield, instead of deporting, young law offenders. We know that the policy is there to protect its citizens by allowing illegal immigrants to report crimes to the police - not to build the confidence of serious crime offending-illegal immigrants. Hence a clear error in the reading and interpretation of the policy can be noted. The sole reason why a debate between the shielding and deportation of young illegal immigrants in San Francisco exists is because the city has an existing sanctuary city policy. Those, on the other side of the debate, argue that the existence of such policy, which values tolerance, allows for the shielding of serious crime offenders. We, on the other hand, argue that when the welfare of the citizens is being put at risk, at the expense of tolerance, then serious consideration needs to be undertaken as we believe that the welfare of the citizens needs to be put at the topmost of every policy and action.

Shielding: A Misappropriation of Public Funds

We also believe that shielding is a misappropriation of the taxpayer's funds. The probation department's action to fly these young felons home and later on putting them in group homes, all at taxpayers' expense is problematic at many levels. Our public officials are at oath to guard our welfare. Our public officials are set to use our funds only for these purposes. It has already been established that crimes committed by young illegal immigrants is, as common sense would put it, detrimental to the welfare of the citizens. Hence, we see no legitimate need to use public funds in shielding these offenders. In fact, what we need is to subject their crimes to our state laws. This is when the move towards deportation makes more sense, is more practical, and in the long run, is more beneficial because in deportation, the expenses will not be shouldered by San Francisco's taxpaying citizens.

But this is not to say that we do not account the juvenile factor of this issue. On this side of the debate, we believe that there exists a need for tougher actions and policies in dealing with crimes in general. In this case, we are dealing with young offenders. Hence, we propose that the city has an obligation to teach and realign the values of offenders. Consequently, the city should put juvenile delinquents in appropriate centers and after finishing their terms, they should be deported. At the end of the day, what we will realize is that crimes committed by young illegal immigrants is just an offshoot created by the more fundamental problem which is structural in its very nature, i.e. that what we really need are tougher and stricter rules regarding our immigration policies - this is when deportation finds its strength as a solution to the argument.