San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city places it in the bullseye for an attack from an emboldened Donald Trump administration.
This time, however, lawyers and community advocates have seen the playbook, and have already begun steeling themselves.
“This is the second time around … and he’s got more ideas, apparently,” said Bill Hing, the founding director of the University of San Francisco’s Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. “So we have got to prepare for the worst.”
Changes to the immigration system
Hing predicts immigration advocates will face both ideological and procedural challenges.
Take domestic violence cases, for example. People escaping domestic violence currently make up the majority of cases successfully handled by Hing’s clinic. These cases will soon become more difficult to win, as Hing expects the federal attorney general appointed by Trump will hold a narrower definition of what justifies political asylum that excludes both domestic violence and gang violence.
“You would think the law is the law,” Hing said. “But, in fact, the attorney general has the ability to impose a certain interpretation of the law.”
The rate at which immigration cases are scheduled and processed may also be ramped up with “rocket dockets.” Federal mandates could require courts to come to quicker decisions that give newcomers less of an opportunity to prepare their defense, Hing said.
Moreover, newly appointed conservative judges are unlikely to exercise their “prosecutorial discretion” to allow people without a criminal background to stay in the country, regardless of their formal asylum status, Hing continued.
On the ground, Hing doesn’t foresee Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents patrolling the streets, checking documents. But the president does have the power to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows about 500,000 undocumented adults who entered the nation as children to remain here.
This could mean a rolling effort to find people as their DACA status expires, and add them to a growing immigration-court docket. With bail typically set between $5,000 and $10,000, Hing anticipates that many former DACA recipients will be detained and unable to pay bail.
In an effort to “embarrass the city,” ICE agents may begin more diligently looking through criminal records and “hanging around” San Francisco courthouses. Meanwhile, Hing said, everyday people will be encouraged to call in others they suspect to be undocumented immigrants, and raids on employers will occur without notice.
These are just the predictable changes. “There’s probably things that we haven’t dreamed of that they’re going to come up with just to make life miserable for people,” Hing added.
‘The promise of San Francisco’
Information is immigrants’ key weapon against challenges to their right to stay in the country, advocates say.
Even before the election, coalitions were preparing to disseminate “know your rights” workshops and connect people to legal aid. There are already plans to once again ramp up the citywide Rapid Response Network hotline managed by Mission Action, according to executive director Laura Valdez.
But more resources — and, thus, partnerships with state and local governments and philanthropic centers — will be needed to meet the growing demand for support, Valdez cautioned: “We can’t just be a sanctuary city in name alone.”
In addition to legal services, this will mean finding funding in an already tight budget for other “safety nets.” Social workers, food banks, and employment opportunities for undocumented people who lose their jobs are required if the city wants to live up to what Asian Law Caucus executive director Aarti Kohli calls “the promise of San Francisco.”
Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie’s experience as a nonprofit director could bode well for cooperation between San Francisco’s leadership and its community organizations, said Jane Pak, co-executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Transitions organization.
As the country waits for Trump to take office, advocates warn San Franicscans not to fall prey to fear.
While immigration lawyers say Trump’s administration will undoubtedly involve “smart” people who understand how to manipulate the system, they know from past experience that not everything the president proposes will come to fruition. Notably, in 2017, Trump was blocked from cutting off federal funds to police in sanctuary cities that refused to cooperate with ICE enforcement.
“Many of their ideas are based on this false assumption that there are no legal rights for human beings in this country,” said Francisco Ugarte, manager of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Immigration Defense Unit. “And there are.”
Trump’s “outrageous” claims are often merely a tactic to gain votes and cause division, Ugarte continued. The reality, especially in a city like San Francisco, in which 35 percent of the population is foreign-born, is that “people won’t just jump on board with mass deportation.”
A silver lining to being the target of the president’s ire, Ugarte added, is that it could bring the city together: “Local political alliances and party politics … seems a little bit less important, with the threats that we’re facing.”
“This administration is undoubtedly going to pose new challenges and have new tactics,” Ugarte said. “But many of the ideas that came out of the Trump administration were so extreme, so far-fetched, and so cruel, that I think a lot of us — if not every one of us — has confidence that we’ll be able to pose significant challenges to their goals.”
If local advocates plan to successfully protect immigrants and refugees from the Trump administration they will need everyone’s help!
Defending immigrants and refugees on a case by case basis will not be enough.
San Francisco is a beacon of freedom within a country which is a beacon of freedom to the world.
We who are fortunate to call San Francisco home must embrace and promote the attitude that all people born have a fundamental right to live and work anywhere they desire.
By so doing, we not only protect others, we protect ourselves.
We also need to protect the disabled and gays . Trumps trying to deports gays . We need to equally share resources that are going to undocumented individuals . Nobody is illegal accept republicans
“Trumps trying to deports gays” – Gays isn’t a country, bro. That’s nonsense.
Does anyone wonder what happens what happens when United states citizens try to stay in Mexico ?
This is why it’s so difficult to comprehend Latinos voting in such significant numbers for Trump.
“everyday people will be encouraged to call in others they suspect to be undocumented immigrants”
I suspect a bounty would have to be paid for that to be effective in this city. And guaranteed anonymity for reporting, as nobody wants to be known as a rat or snitch.
It is not like ICE are sitting on their hands these days. A good junk of what’s been “promised” are part of ICE everyday, routine operations. We just don’t hear about it much, so expect for the next administration to try to make a big fuss out of it and milk this for public effect.
Next, bullies gonna bully, they’re going to look for “low hanging fruit”. Kick in doors and again try to maximize that for effect at minimum effort. Which yes, unfortunately will be staged in places like CA. I guarantee the Smithfields and Tysons of this world will be left alone – what with divorcing part of the MAGA donor class from cheap, indentured labor. Not gonna happen.
Beyond that, I’m hoping this might just fizzle out like that border wall they tried to build (and make Mexico pay) the first go around. Finger crossed.
Can we please vote on this “sanctuary city” nonsense?
The city passed a sanctuary city ordinance in 1989, apparently without voter approval (I can’t find any record of a vote).
Can someone put it on the ballot of the next election? It would be democratic to let residents weigh in on it.
All speculation and hype. Let’s take a collective breath and see what REALLY is taking shape with this new presidency election. The media loves shaking people up and freaking everyone out, it sells!
Had Democrats given citizens who vote half of the face time that they’ve given to immigrants, then none of this backlash would be happening. It is not like Democrats gave migrants that much face time, rather Democrats abandoned any commitment to working voters. You can eat out so long as you eat at home.
When Trump said “She wants to give transgender operations to illegal aliens in prison,” Trump was telegraphing his winning strategy: anti-toxic woke, anti-immigration and law and order.
When Trump leads in with immigration, he does so in order to get Democrats to take the bait and respond predictably in ways that only further consolidate Trump’s base and leave the dwindling Democrat voter base out in the cold, further alienating them from this circling the drain party.
Trump has Democrats’ number on speed dial, is furiously redialing, and Democrats can’t help but always pick up.
After a certain point, if one is going to migrate to this US at point in this time, then one has to expect such hostility and instability from an increasingly right shifted government, Democrat or Trump Republican.
Mexico offers more forward looking promise and opportunity at this point than the US.
Mexico isn’t accepting all migrants either. I strongly doubt your last point. Migrants are preyed upon at all stages of their long walk and when they arrive, there’s nothing for them except the goodwill of local individuals and support charity groups. Those with valid asylum claims just waiting on a court hearing date are completely in limbo, again, even if their claims are ultimately valid and proven. Years.
“Many of their ideas are based on this false assumption that there are no legal rights for human beings in this country,” said Francisco Ugarte, manager of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Immigration Defense Unit.
Really? There are no “legal rights for human beings in this country”? Was the Constitution repealed when my back was turned. Have all federal laws repealed? It’s news to me! This man is part of the SF Public Defender’s Office?
Legally there is no such thing as a sanctuary city or state, because they are all based on breaking federal immigration laws
It’s fascinating how the people in this article, and of course ML itself, never can grasp the difference between legal and illegal immigration. The whole controversy is really that simple.
Read it again: in this country, human beings have legal rights. The idea that they don’t is a false assumption, one that the incoming administration is making.
The reason they do is, naturally, because the Constitution is still the law. For example the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees “due process of law” to every “person”. There’s no carve-out in the Constitution to make it not apply based on what papers someone did or didn’t have when they entered the country, or what papers someone with a badge suspects they didn’t have when they entered.
We must make sure Hondurans and others are able to keep supplying the good people of San Francisco with plentiful meth and fentanyl ! The evil Trump must not disrupt the only growth industry in our fair city.