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SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday was successful in overriding Mayor Gavin Newsom's veto of legislation changing the sanctuary city ordinance. Newsom, who said the ordinance conflicts with federal law, said through his spokesman that he would ignore the legislation - prompting the legislation's author to threaten a legal challenge to the mayor. The new law takes effect in 30 days, and Supervisor David Campos said the board may fight the mayor in court if no compromise can be struck. Campos' ordinance - which garnered eight votes Tuesday - requires that undocumented juveniles be turned...

San Francisco supervisors' effort to shield immigrant youths from deportation when they're arrested on felony charges comes to a head today when the board votes on an override of Mayor Gavin Newsom's veto - a vote Newsom says he'll disregard because the ordinance would violate federal law. Supervisor David Campos' legislation has enough votes to pass. At that point, San Francisco will be at the center of a simmering nationwide legal debate over state and local government authority to depart from federal immigration policy, said Jayashri Srikantiah, a Stanford law professor and director of the school's Immigrants' Rights Clinic. At...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday vetoed the Board of Supervisors' legislation changing the city's sanctuary city policy. The letter is a formality on two counts: the supervisors have the votes to override Newsom's veto, and the mayor has said he'll ignore the legislation anyway. At issue is legislation, written by Supervisor David Campos, requiring that undocumented youth be reported to federal immigration officials for possible deportation after they're convicted of a felony, not when they're first arrested, as is the current policy. Newsom, has said the legislation must be ignored because it violates federal law.

San Francisco (AP) -- This famously liberal city, known for tackling thorny issues from gay marriage to universal health care, is wrestling with another divisive issue. The Board of Supervisors gave final approval Tuesday to a measure that would keep law enforcement from turning over minors to immigration authorities unless they have been found guilty of a felony. The move pits the panel against Mayor Gavin Newsom and law enforcement by reversing his policy of turning over youths to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after their arrest. Newsom took the stance in 2008 after the city was accused of protecting young...

There's still no love lost between Supervisor Chris Daly and Mayor Gavin Newsom. Daly, making a guest appearance Monday at the Board of Supervisors' public safety committee to support Supervisor David Campos' amendment to the city's sanctuary ordinance, said Newsom should be "held accountable" for releasing a confidential legal memo that said Campos' amendment violated federal law and would invite a legal challenge to the entire sanctuary policy. Daly downplayed the memo, saying it outlines a worst-case scenario and "exaggerates the legal risk involved." But he also said Newsom had provided a road map to anyone looking to challenge the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The family of a father and two sons who were gunned down on a San Francisco street last year has failed to convince a federal judge that the city violated the victims' constitutional rights by shielding their alleged murderer from deportation. But a lawyer for Tony Bologna's widow and daughter said he'll return to a state court with claims that San Francisco acted negligently by not notifying federal authorities of Edwin Ramos' immigration status when police arrested him in separate incidents in 2003 and 2004. The city's lawyer said he'll seek dismissal of those claims as...

The problem isn't that San Francisco lacks good ideas. It is that it takes them too far. In a period of 20 years, we went from a reasonable sanctuary policy that shielded political exiles who were here illegally to District Attorney Kamala Harris justifying letting first-time drug offenders clear their convictions even though they were illegal immigrants and subject to deportation. But here's the question: Why didn't anyone see this coming? Wasn't the uproar a year ago enough to get everyone's attention? Last year, The Chronicle's Jaxon VanDerbeken revealed that the city had been transporting convicted juvenile crack dealers back...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday that half a dozen illegal immigrants whose drug convictions were expunged as part of a job training program that she oversaw were "following the rules" and deserved to be exonerated even after prosecutors learned of their status. Prosecutors tightened guidelines, the district attorney said, after learning last summer that a man enrolled in Harris' Back on Track program was an illegal immigrant who allegedly robbed and assaulted a woman in Pacific Heights. The suspect in that case, Alexander Izaguirre, was the only one of the seven enrollees who turned out to be...

City officials are finally admitting what others have been saying for years: San Francisco is attracting huge numbers of homeless people from all over. Thousands of transient people, arriving from other counties, states and even countries, are overwhelming the city's homeless system. Facing a crippling budget shortfall, officials at San Francisco's homeless agencies are proposing a radical idea - take care of the city's own first, and require newcomers to show proof of residency for aid."If a homeless family living in San Francisco doesn't get shelter, and somebody just off the bus does, it doesn't seem fair," said Trent Rhorer,...

San Francisco's budget deficit for next year has grown to $575.6 million - equal to nearly half the city's discretionary spending account. It's a financial crisis Mayor Gavin Newsom called one of the worst the city has experienced since the 1930s. Newsom will announce his plan for cutting up to $125 million from this year's $6.6 billion budget today, but gave few details about what it will include. "This is nothing we've seen before," he told The Chronicle. "As difficult as these cuts will be, the real challenge is in the next three, four, six months." Today's announcement is expected...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A teenager accused of stabbing a 14-year-old boy to death in a gang-motivated attack had been given sanctuary from deportation under San Francisco's previous practice of shielding young illegal immigrant felons from federal authorities, records show. Rony Aguilera, 17, known as "Guerrillero," has been charged as an adult in the July 31 sword attack in the Excelsior neighborhood that killed Ivan Miranda, who police say was an innocent victim caught up in an act of gang vengeance. Authorities believe Aguilera is an illegal immigrant from Honduras, but he was never referred to federal officials after being arrested...

It's been said that San Francisco politics is like a dysfunctional family. But that's unfair to dysfunctional families. In the last eight years, the city's leading politicians have seemed more concerned with petty personal grudges than governing. There are supervisors - hello, Chris Daly - who will reflexively oppose anything Mayor Gavin Newsom proposes. Again and again, the mayor's office is quick to rise to the bait but not so eager to reach out and build bridges. And so, as four new members of the Board of Supervisors prepare to take their seats, here's some advice: Knock it off. This...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court today reinstated a taxpayer lawsuit that accuses San Francisco officials of violating a state law that requires police who make drug arrests to notify federal authorities if a criminal suspect doesn't appear to be a U.S. citizen.A Superior Court judge dismissed the suit last year, saying the California law on which it was based was an invalid attempt by the state to regulate immigration. The First District Court of Appeal disagreed Wednesday and said the law, though it might affect immigration, is based on the state's legal authority to combat drug trafficking....

San Francisco officials have agreed to pay back $5.2 million in federal grant money the city now admits it was not entitled to under a U.S. program to compensate local law enforcement for fighting border crime. The U.S. Justice Department audited its Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative grant program last year and concluded that San Francisco - through a private consultant - had applied for money it was not entitled to claim for prosecuting cases for federal authorities and incarcerating defendants. Rather than basing its claims on specific cases that federal officials referred for local prosecution, as required by the program...

SAN FRANCISCO — A judge today effectively dismissed an immigration group's legal attack on a program that would give San Franciscans with city ID cards, rejecting the claim that the program conflicts with federal law. The San Francisco Municipal ID Card, which would provide city residents, including undocumented immigrants, with access to a variety of services and local institutions, was "entirely neutral with respect to immigration status," said Superior Court Judge Peter Busch. The city ID program, he said, merely requires that applicants have been in the city for at least 15 days. Using examples of other city programs, Busch...

(10-03) 17:58 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal grand jury is investigating whether San Francisco's policy of offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants violates U.S. laws against harboring people who are in the country illegally, city officials say. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said his office has hired a criminal defense lawyer to represent employees who might be questioned or asked for documents. Both he and Mayor Gavin Newsom said they would cooperate with the investigation. San Francisco, like about 80 other U.S. cities and five states, has a law prohibiting the use of its funds to help enforce federal immigration law...

San Francisco -- Nearly 30 percent of the felony offenders San Francisco juvenile justice officials have reported to federal immigration authorities since the city stopped shielding youths from deportation have turned out to be adults, authorities say. The city's Juvenile Probation Department has referred 58 offenders to federal authorities since Mayor Gavin Newsom announced July 2 that the city no longer would protect youths from deportation under San Francisco's sanctuary law. The mayor took the step after The Chronicle revealed that the city was paying for flights home and $7,000-a-month group homes for underage, undocumented offenders, who as adults could...

There's little doubt that these are tough economic times for most Americans. But of all the people affected by such a downturn, perhaps no one suffers more than low-wage workers who struggle even in good times to make ends meet. Their challenge in acquiring and maintaining assets – a house, a business or even a savings account – makes them even more vulnerable when times get tough. Millions of American households have no checking or savings account of any kind. The "unbanked" typically don't know if they qualify, how to open accounts or even if they should. Without bank accounts,...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A suspected illegal immigrant - free after being shielded from deportation by San Francisco officials despite committing two gang-related assaults as a juvenile - is now facing charges that he tried to stab a man to death in San Mateo County, authorities say. The case of Eric Antonio Uc-Cahun, now 19, is the second in which a youth offender protected from deportation in San Francisco has gone on to be arrested for a violent crime as an adult. The San Mateo County stabbing was especially vicious, authorities said - a top prosecutor said the victim had been...

A San Francisco city commission has taken a defiant stand against Mayor Gavin Newsom's directive on young immigrant felons by urging officials to permit the offenders to remain in the city and help pay for their housing, job placement services and immigration lawyers. (snip)

A quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies "to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes." A careful reading of the initiative, "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers," however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings. "If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself," said the Rev....

The San Francisco Democratic Party has veered dramatically to the left, telling voters that on Nov. 4 they should elect a raft of ultra-liberal supervisorial candidates, decriminalize prostitution, boot JROTC from public schools, embrace public power and reject Mayor Gavin Newsom's special court in the Tenderloin. That's just what some party members feared after Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly and Jake McGoldrick along with others who billed themselves as "The Hope Slate" were elected to the Democratic County Central Committee in June. The powerful, 34-member panel worked late into Wednesday night deciding endorsements that could play a big role in...

San Bernardino, CA (AP) -- The California attorney general is being asked to help get a 12-month tally of San Francisco juvenile offenders placed in San Bernardino County group homes. . . . In June, five suspected illegal immigrant drug dealers from Honduras were shipped by San Francisco without notification to a Yucaipa group home where they escaped.

You might ask yourself: Could the illegal alien sanctuary debacle in San Francisco get any worse? Any worse than the triple murder of an innocent father and his two sons at the hands of an illegal alien sanctuary beneficiary? Any worse than the callousness with which San Francisco government officials have treated the grieving, devastated widow of the murder victims who would be alive today if not for the city’s bloody open-borders policies? Any worse than the taxpayer-funded, law-undermining illegal alien shuttle service the felonious city was running for young Honduran illegal alien crack dealers? Any worse than the illegal...

If Mayor Gavin Newsom is serious about tightening up San Francisco's sanctuary laws, he might want to take a look at the case of Marco Martinez - a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador who has been arrested by police five times in the past year and a half for allegedly selling crack cocaine but has never wound up in the feds' hands. According to police records, Martinez first appeared on the radar here Oct. 6, 2006, when he sold crack to an undercover officer in United Nations Plaza. He was booked into jail, but quickly posted $35,000 bail and...

As San Francisco's juvenile justice system shielded young illegal immigrant felons from possible deportation, Mayor Gavin Newsom's office gave grants totaling more than $650,000 to nonprofit agencies to provide the underage offenders with free services - everything from immigration attorneys to housing assistance to "arts and cultural affirmation activities," city records show. Newsom has said the city began its policy of not referring young immigrant offenders to federal authorities for deportation under previous mayors, and that he reversed the practice after he became aware of it this year. However, in 2006, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice - a community...

Tom Sepa would rather not be called homeless. "That word is loaded," he said. "I prefer 'urban outdoorsman.' " It is true that Sepa has a lot of things that aren't generally associated with the stereotypical San Francisco homeless person - like a full-time job. A telemarketer, Sepa hits the phones at 7 a.m., working out of Zephyr Cafe in the Richmond District. He uses his laptop and a cell phone headset to make over 100 cold calls each morning. Currently, he's trying to get companies to take a meeting with a software firm he's representing. He gets paid via...

SAN FRANCISCO -- About a dozen members of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the U.S.-Mexican border in an effort to keep illegal immigrants out, stood on the steps of San Francisco's City Hall today to decry the city's sanctuary policy and demand that Mayor Gavin Newsom resign. They waved signs calling Newsom, District Attorney Kamala Harris and William Siffermann, head of the city's Juvenile Probation Department, "accessories to murder" for the city's now-reversed policy of not turning over illegal immigrant youths arrested for felonies to federal authorities for possible deportation. One Salvadoran immigrant who benefited from the policy, Edwin...

San Francisco -- A member of a notoriously violent street gang was arrested and booked Wednesday on three counts of murder in the shootings of a San Francisco father and two sons in the city's Excelsior district that police believe stemmed from a minor traffic incident, authorities said. Edwin Ramos, 21, of El Sobrante was arrested at 12:05 a.m. at his home on the 4300 block of Hilltop Drive in the Sunday slayings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, authorities said. At 5 p.m., he was booked on the murder charges. Police recovered a...

A mayor knows he's having a bad week when its saving grace comes in a jailhouse. Such was the case of Mayor Gavin Newsom, who found himself pleading with jailed tech whiz Terry Childs to give up the access codes to San Francisco's computer system. Childs did, and even some of Newsom's critics were crediting him with a heroic move in using his powers of persuasion to keep a Y2K from paralyzing the city's computer systems in 2008. It sure beats talking about Edwin Ramos or the city's sanctuary policy. Fairly or not, Newsom's chances in the 2010 governor's race...

SAN FRANCISCO — The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday called on Mayor Gavin Newsom to allow the federal agency full access to information about local inmates, saying the city should rescind its policy that prohibits ICE agents from reviewing jail logs and records. A letter sent to Newsom from ICE director Julie Myers urging more access to inmate records was the latest flare-up following accusations that a San Francisco policy to shield undocumented immigrants also caused the city to shelter felons charged with serious crimes. Eileen Hirst, chief of staff for San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey,...

How is it possible that chronic behavioral malcontent George Miley assaulted a female police officer three weeks ago, but only ended up spending four days in jail? After all, his July 6 attack on Officer Lisa Frazer was followed by his 106th arrest since 2001. Most everyone says the system for punishing quality-of-life crimes like public drunkenness and aggressive panhandling is broken in San Francisco, but Miley seems like an extraordinary case. How can he be on the streets today? The answer is both complicated and simple: Lenient San Francisco juries, clogged courts, and judges who are more willing to...

The last illegal immigrant juvenile offender who had been in a $7,000-a-month group home as part of San Francisco's now-abandoned effort to shield young immigrants from deportation has bolted, authorities said Tuesday. The youth walked away from the unlocked center in Atascadero (San Luis Obispo County) on Sunday, bringing to 12 the number of illegal immigrant offenders in the past month who have walked away from youth homes hundreds of miles from the city. Ten of the 12, all of them from Honduras and all detained for dealing drugs, are still at large, including the youth who disappeared early Monday....

San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy - as it was implemented until recently - put the welfare of juvenile gang-bangers and drug dealers, who also were illegal immigrants, before the safety of law-abiding residents who are victimized by gangs and thugs. As The Chronicle reported Sunday in a story by reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken, one beneficiary of that policy is Edwin Ramos, 21, who is charged with killing Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16 in a spectacularly senseless shooting spree on June 22. If Ramos is guilty, San Francisco political correctness and a federal immigration screw-up...

The man charged with killing a father and two sons on a San Francisco street last month was one of the youths who benefited from the city's long-standing practice of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who committed felonies from possible deportation, The Chronicle has learned. Edwin Ramos, now 21, is being held on three counts of murder in the June 22 deaths of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. They were shot near their home in the Excelsior district when Tony Bologna, driving home from a family picnic, briefly blocked the gunman's car from completing a...

San Francisco's political establishment has long prided itself on providing a haven for illegal immigrants. Mayor Gavin Newsom even launched a taxpayer-funded $83,000 "public awareness campaign" earlier this year assuring illegal immigrants that the "sanctuary city" by the bay was in their court. And indeed it is. Under the city's 1989 voter-approved sanctuary ordinance, police officers and other city employees are prohibited from inquiring into immigration status. In addition, the city will not direct municipal funds or employees towards assisting federal immigration enforcement, unless such assistance is required by federal or state law or a warrant. No doubt such protections...

San Francisco -- An effort by San Francisco to shield eight young Honduran crack dealers from federal immigration officials backfired when the youths escaped from Southern California group homes within days of their arrival, officials said Monday. The walkaways are the latest in a string of embarrassments for city officials who are protecting illegal-immigrant drug dealers from federal authorities and possible deportation because of San Francisco's 1989 declaration that the city is a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Until recently, San Francisco flew juvenile illegal immigrants convicted of drug crimes to their home countries rather than cooperate with the federal Immigration...

San Francisco juvenile probation officials - citing the city's immigrant sanctuary status - are protecting Honduran youths caught dealing crack cocaine from possible federal deportation and have given some offenders a city-paid flight home with carte blanche to return. The city's practices recently prompted a federal criminal investigation into whether San Francisco has been systematically circumventing U.S. immigration law, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.City officials say they are trying to balance their obligations under federal and state law with local court orders and San Francisco's policies aimed at protecting the rights of the young immigrants, who they...

SAN FRANCISCO — Jose Luis Sanchez was a veteran cook at El Balazo, working at the popular Bay Area taqueria chain for eight years before a Friday immigration raid ended his career and left his family's future uncertain."My kids are sad," said the 32-year-old San Pablo resident, one of 63 illegal immigrants employed by the 11-restaurant chain who were arrested Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They want to know if they're going to send me to Mexico."With an electronic surveillance bracelet attached indefinitely to his ankle, Sanchez contemplated his future Monday afternoon outside the Sansome Street high-rise building...

San Francisco -- Talk about strange bedfellows. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, and John McCain, the Republican presumptive nominee, joined forces this week to repeatedly remind voters that Barack Obama was - where else? - in San Francisco when he talked about "bitter" American workers who "cling" to religion and guns out of frustration. And in the latest 2008 presidential campaign brouhaha, the City by the Bay has again become a potent symbol for that perceived liability of Democratic candidates: a tendency to be flaky, out of touch and entirely too liberal to appeal to Joe Sixpack...

If you're one of the estimated thousands of illegal immigrants living in San Francisco, you're now learning via billboards and TV spots that this town is a self-declared sanctuary from federal border controls. You can visit a health clinic, report a crime and enroll your kids in local schools without fear of refusal or deportation. San Francisco, via a $83,000 campaign in five languages, wants this slice of its population to know about these humane policies. Except none of it is really true - or necessary. San Francisco isn't a deep-moated castle protected from federal immigration rules, which trump the...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Monday that she is trying "to get to the bottom" of how her office obtained millions of dollars from a grant program for prosecution of border crimes that federal auditors have concluded the city had no right to receive. Federal officials said last week that San Francisco had received $5.4 million since 2004 in grant money intended to reimburse local jurisdictions for prosecuting crimes on behalf of federal authorities. In 2006, the $3.7 million that San Francisco received from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative was the most of any county in four states...

The U.S. Department of Justice wants San Francisco to repay $5.4 million in grant money earmarked to help fight the war on drugs in states bordering Mexico because federal auditors found the city was not eligible for the funding. San Francisco had sought the grant under the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative, which compensates law enforcement agencies in California and other border states for the costs of handling prosecutions in lieu of federal authorities. As of March of last year, the city claimed it had handled more than 2,241 such cases, but a federal audit released this week found that none...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on the presidential campaign trail when she comes to town on Tuesday - and Republicans couldn't be happier about it. The way they see it, the more face time the pro-gay-marriage, pro-sanctuary-city, pro-gun-control mayor of the most leftist, liberal city in America spends with the Democratic front-runner, the better. A recent news release distributed by the Republican National Committee to political reporters around the country lambasted Newsom as "Hillary's San Francisco Treat" and took a direct guilt-by-association swipe at Clinton by highlighting the mayor's signature last month on a...

San Francisco -- Bernie Ward, a popular San Francisco radio talk show host and former Catholic priest, has been indicted on federal child pornography charges, authorities said today.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to take a Hawaiian getaway with gal pal Jennifer Siebel in the midst of the big fuel spill on the bay is providing new fodder for Newsom's critics. "The facts are, he left town after he knew he had a 58,000-gallon spill on his hands," said Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.Peskin, of course, is fighting with the mayor over allegations that the board president has been bullying Newsom's department heads. He says raising questions about the three-day vacation Newsom took starting Thursday is not an attempt to deflect the questions being aimed his...

The Board of Supervisors voted today to make San Francisco the largest U.S. city to issue municipal identification cards to its residents, regardless of whether or not they are in the country legally. Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the legislation's author, said the availability of identification cards is a smart public safety measure because it would make residents living on the social margins of San Francisco more likely to seek the help of police and could give them more access to banking services. "People are afraid to report crimes," Ammiano said, referring to illegal immigrants who avoid local law enforcement authorities over...

A veteran San Francisco police officer is under departmental investigation - and could be suspended - for writing a letter to The Chronicle criticizing the way Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Police Department are handling the homeless problem in Golden Gate Park. According to police sources, Sgt. John Lewis of Park Station is being investigated for authoring a letter that "undermines the efficiency of the department." Lewis' letter, published on The Chronicle's editorial page Aug. 15, questioned the Newsom administration's tactic of sending cops and outreach workers into the park before dawn to steer campers into social programs or, if...

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera lashed out today at Public Defender Jeff Adachi for siding with critics who have labeled his proposed civil injunctions against gang members as "the criminalization of people of color." As lawyers went to court to argue whether to restrict the movements of alleged gang members in the Mission District and Western Addition, Herrera called on the public defender to "publicly repudiate" a rally planned for today in opposition to the proposed injunctions. Herrera told Adachi in a letter released to the media that he was "troubled by the inflammatory tenor and...

From short and sweet, to long-winded overtures, the letters have been pouring in following Mayor Gavin Newsom's edict this week that hundreds of city officials hand in their resignations by the end of the day today. Many letters consist of a single, get-right-to-the-point sentence: "I hereby tender my resignation." Others read more like resumes than resignation letters, with officials attempting to make their case to stay on the job. And some are just plain comical. "As my work here in San Francisco began with your call, it will continue with your call, until such time as you find my vision...