In the merry-go-round blame game being played by San Francisco officials as to which party is responsible for letting loose illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who murdered Kathryn Steinle on July 1, the latest salvo comes from San Francisco sheriff’s deputies, who filed a complaint against Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.
The sheriffs claim that a March 13 memo from Mirkarimi prevented them from contacting federal immigration authorities about Lopez-Sanchez, who was released by Mirkarimi in April after arriving in San Francisco to face a drug charge for selling marijuana. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had asked to be notified before Lopez-Sanchez was released.
Lopez-Sanchez was due to be deported for the sixth time, having incurred several convictions for drugs since 2001, but the San Francisco’s Sheriff’s department moved him to San Francisco from a federal prison in San Bernardino County to face the marijuana charge.
Mirkarimi’s March memo amended the 2013 “Due Process for All” ordinance, signed into law by Mayor Ed Lee, which stated that someone could only be deported from San Francisco if they had one violent felony conviction in the past seven years and were charged with another violent felony. The March memo urged “limited contact and communication with ICE representatives absent a court-issued warrant, a signed court order, or other legal requirement authorizing ICE access.”
[…]
