The other convictions included probation violation and felony re-entry after deportation. Authorities in San Francisco were not legally obligated to release Sanchez based on the state law.įour of Sanchez’s seven prior felonies were drug related, including his March arrest, which stemmed from a 10-year-old San Francisco warrant for marijuana possession that immigration officials wanted to clear from the books before deporting him, authorities said. Jerry Brown signed AB4, a bill by then-Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, barring state and local law enforcement agencies from detaining undocumented residents based on their immigration status.Ī year earlier, however, the governor had vetoed a version of the bill that didn’t allow police the discretion to hold for deportation people with a record of serious crimes. That policy is a broader version of legislation passed first in San Francisco and then statewide in 2013.
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He was held until April 15, when deputies released him after checking with federal authorities to make sure there was no legal basis to hold him, Horne said. Horne said Sanchez was brought to court March 27, where his drug charge was dropped. “We followed both the city ordinance and our policy, which is that we don’t honor ICE detainers - which are a request, not a legal basis,” Freya Horne, an attorney at the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, said Friday.
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In May 2014, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi announced his “no-holds ICE policy,” saying the department would no longer honor immigration detention requests “unless they are supported by judicial determination of probable cause or with a warrant of arrest.”
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Opponents say holding inmates based on their immigration status creates hostility between immigrant communities and law enforcement, while others argue that Sanchez’s case illustrates why agencies should revisit policies on releasing certain undocumented inmates - especially those with criminal histories. The case reignites debate over whether local jurisdictions should hold inmates who are in the country illegally but would otherwise be eligible for release. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had turned Sanchez over to San Francisco police on March 26 for an outstanding drug warrant and requested that they be notified before his release, so federal officers could take him back into custody and deport him.īefore that, Sanchez was serving time in federal prison on felony charges of re-entering the country after deportation.īut when the San Francisco district attorney’s office declined to prosecute Sanchez for what authorities said was a decade-old marijuana possession case, sheriff’s deputies released him without notifying immigration authorities, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.