UPDATE 5/2/11: Sherriff Michael Hennessey wrote an op-ed piece in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle explaining his position on Secure Communities.
More than two decades ago, San Francisco took a stand against what it saw as an attack on undocumented immigrants. It imposed a “sanctuary city” policy, shielding people without papers who had been arrested on minor crimes and without criminal histories from federal immigration officials. Last June, however, the federal government introduced a database that began to vacuum up identifications of everyone arrested, looking for immigration violations. But now city officials are planning to again shield some immigrants in the San Francisco jail from possible deportation by refusing to hand them over. Sheriff Michael Hennesey says he believes this is permissible under federal law.
