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tv   [untitled]    September 8, 2013 9:00am-9:31am PDT

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make sure that goes forward but it's when we have the request from the outside we see the due process denied and we want to create that separation between the local criminal justice enforcement and federal law enforcement and that's the basis and why we want this ordinance separate from an amendment with carve outs for people because of offenses. >> i appreciate that. my recollection of the conversation is different as you know. i believe to take the discretion away from the sheriff -- if we want to make it policy or if the sheriff wants to make it policy that's within the sheriff's prerogative but to remove all latitude and san francisco could become a destination city or a
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place seen as a safe haven for those with prior felony convictions and sex convictions and weapons convictions and it's one thing that the people in san francisco would be contending with the people outside and i don't believe that's in the best interest of public safety. >> i believe anyone in the justice system is held accountable through actions through the court system and the sheriff's department and we're just saying that we wouldn't be extending their time because we have a request from the federal government regardless of what their o fence is. i believe supervisor campos has remarks. >> thank you chief for being here. i hope you had a good summer. going back to this issue of public safety and i'm very mindful as the chief law enforcement official here in the city that has to be your top priority. it's my top priority too, but i think the whole
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point of this is making the distinction of the criminal justice system and this and it would be a mistake on support any system that allows a dangerous individual to go free and to the extent people are charged with certain crimes, certain conduct, i think it's appropriate for us to demand that the criminal justice system in fact -- if that individual is dangerous that they are detained until their proceeding is completed and a finding of guilty or innocence, so those that have supported sairchtary have never arguedancy the idea to ensure the safety of the public but we believe that the steps that need to be taken in terms of deciding who is detaind and who is not detained needs
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to be done through the criminal justice system, so isn't that a more effective way of ensuring public safety? because then you're not sending mixed messages with certain kinds of crimes you might be reported but the way that you protect the public is ensure that people that need to be kept in detention until the proceeding is done are kept in detention in the system. why not do it that way? >> so the ordinance speaks to folks that operate within the law. the conversation now are folks acted outside the law and convicted within our criminal justice system here in the u.s. for one of these violations and by definition makes them a danger to public safety. this detainer that may -- may -- not will and could be granted by the sheriff on a case by case basis
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would happen after they reoffended and the sheriff might decide in the case of like a violent gang member that continue to pursue a violent gang life the city of san francisco would be better off if that person wasn't here because they weren't advantaging themselves of the privileges here in san francisco afforded by this ordinance. >> and again i'm not saying i disagree with that. i am saying is there a better way dealing with that individual in the system so if you have a reoffense and prior conviction there are changes in the rules in the criminal justice system how you handle those individuals? >>i would say by and large as spoken by the sheriff that is the case already by policy but i am suggesting there could be an exception to the rule and could be a violent felon or sex
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offender or weapon possessor and we wouldn't want to keep from being detained. >> the question is again -- i agree with that but when we say by law do it through the criminal justice system instead of injecting immigration and sanctuary. >> and that's how it is now and if you made the law and those detained wouldn't be detained and could commit a crime in san francisco. >> it depends on the specifics and i appreciate the movement by the sheriff's office but i don't think we have the right policy. it's actually not the most progressive policy in the country. santa clara in fact is and santa clara there is -- santa clara goes beyond what we're proposing here, what supervisor avalos is proposing. santa clara makes compliance contingent on funding by the federal government which is not
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really included here. now to your knowledge even though santa clara has no carve outs, and in fact addresses the issue of public safety through the criminal justice system has there been an increase in criminal activity in santa clara because of that? i mean i want to make sure when we talk about the fear that somehow people are going to flood the geatds of san francisco if we have this policy that we base that on fact. what do you know in terms of the numbers in santa clara? >> i know crime is up all over the state so it would be unfair to attribute that to a particular ordinance they may or may not have but i can tell you here in san francisco at the present time we're record low for homicides and gun violence is gun and we are working with community and i am a believer if it's not broke
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don't fix it. >> let me say this i believe the reason crime is down in san francisco because of the great work you and your police officers are doing and not because of s-com. >> i would say it's the community trust and the support that we have been getting from the whole city that's added to the peace dividend that we're having right now, but i also say it's fragile, so i would be concerned if we added anybody to the 96 that could potentially. >> >> be a violent person. >> i think in the end chief we're not far apart. it's because we recognize it's fragile. because of that fragile nature of that the community has with the police that we don't want to have the notion that somehow we are cooperating with ice get in the way of actually protecting that trust, and that's why i believe that you're absolutely right to be worried about public safety, be worried about certain
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individuals. let's deal with them through the criminal justice system and let's not inject immigration into it. that's the difference. >> but what i want to put out very clearly if you're a convicted violent felon, a sex offender or a convicted weapons person and there is no safe harbor in san francisco. >> absolutely. let's do it through the criminal justice system and it applies to them. >> and right now the sheriff has the discretion to do just that. >> i guess the last thing i would say this is the core of what we're talking about and not anything individual about this particular sheriff or any sheriff that the whole point is that you want a court that you want the legal system as a whole entirety of the system to have a clear set of rules, and not have
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one individual decide, you know. as great as any individual maybe the idea here is that you want clarity and you want uniformity and which is why we're saying do it through the criminal justice system. >> and as you said and as many times as the case with you and i and i think we're that close but i have to sit on my three exceptions. >> well let's keep talking. >> fair enough. >> thank you chief. i appreciate you being here and you expressing your support for the framework of the legislation. i do want let the sheriff respond but i have other speakers that need to speak before that so i wanted to afford a little time later for the sheriff to come back, but most of all i think putting in through one individual like the sheriff -- regardless of who the sheriff is makes that person judge and jury. i also think it takes away from our effort and
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principle of due process. next up i would like to call up angela chan and beverly uptown and olga [inaudible] if she could stay. >> hi good afternoon. i am angela chan and attorney at asians law caucus and formerly known as the asian law caucus and the older company representing these people and in chinatown. i am here to express support for the due process and why the policy and should and must become law in san francisco and explain why there should be no carve outs, no exceptions in the policy. the due process for all ordinance will hold the ending of immigrant necessary our jail for deportation by custom enforcement and it's not the job of local enforcement to fix the broken system and hold
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san franciscos in the local jails. in 2010 a controversial program as secure communities was turned on in san francisco without the city's permission and against the will of sheriff michael hennessy and this program checks the immigration background of every individual by sharing fingerprint data in ice. if there is a flaw in the data base ice they send a detainer for extra time beyond when they are released. every fingerprint that is sent to ice and about 17% of the matches are asian immigrants and doesn't mean they're undocumented. they could have a green card. this affects a large part of san francisco. once the ice hold is in place once the individual is held in the criminal matter and could be found innocent or a
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victim or witness and it doesn't matter and ice it there and through this process that entangles our local law enforcement with civil immigration enforcement that lead to 784 deportations from san francisco in the past few years from this program and not counting the other deportations happening with ice having its office three blocks from my office. unfortunately even individuals victim of crime have been held from ice after calling our police and norma who is a courageous domestic violence victim and called the police. she lives in the mission and unfortunately because the perpetrator falsely accused her of being involved she was held in the local jail for five days. she has a young u.s. citizen
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born son and it was profiled in the time and she was courageous and when she called for help she was unfortunately held for deportation hearings. i also want to explain why it's named this and why there can't be exceptions. these are different from civil warrants. they're administrative requests. they're not reviewed by a judge, no review. a low ranking ice officer with no official authority whatsoever can sign and issue an ice detainer. another problem with the detainers there is no legal standard. they're not based on reasonable suspicion and no prowbl cause is needed to issue the detainer. that's the problem. they have no process in law. when they are issued and the person is held a second longer than the criminal
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matters allows them to be held it's a due process violation under the constitution and protects people regardless of the immigration status. that's why sheriffs across the country have been sued for these detainers. the sheriff in l.a. lee baca is being sued and another sheriff was sued and responding to detainers and inappropriately and holding them extra time beyond the 43 hours and these are lawtds that could happen because there is no legal basis for holding someone. they're not criminal warrants. i also wanted to talk about that we're not the first city to do this and several people mentioned this and several years ago santa clara county and cook county illinois passed a policy that in effect responds to no ice detainers. what they found as a result it increased trust between the local law
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enforcement and the community. didn't create any public safety problems. in fact it helped with public safety concerns and their board of supervisors, their sheriffs have been -- they continue to have discussions about this and their board of supervisors are in strong support of the policy so finally i want to say they want to thank all of the groups, labor groups, youth groups, lgbt organizations that worked hard for the this policy and give our gratitude to the supervisors for this i am sure i will leave someone out. it's the total eight supervisors and we encourage the three remaining supervisors to join us and it's unified clear support and other cities had the unified board support and we need the same
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and we appreciate the majority support at this moment. so thanks very much. >> thanks very much. next i would like to call up beverly upton from the domestic violence consortium and followed by olga and ms.upton -- she's one of the speakers to support the ordinance so we will have her speak beyond the two minutes and after that it's two minutes provided for public comment. >> thank you supervisor. i will still try to be brief. we are honored to be here today and stand with our residents in the immigrant and lgbt communities throughout the city and show our undying support for immigrant rights and for secured communities. if it doesn't end at the federal level it doesn't appear it will end at the state level. we are in full support
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of ending it at the local level. as you know my area of expertise and my experience is in domestic violence and the prevention of domestic violence and its effects on children and the broader community. when a survivor of domestic violence calls trusted law enforcement there is always a chance that law enforcement will be convinced that she played a part -- he or she played a part in the domestic violence. it's a serious issue. we're working with chief suhr and sfpd and everyone involved to try to make that as safe to call the police as we can possibly can. i have faith that we will get there. i have faith very few survivors of domestic violence will be wrongly arrested in this city, but when that happens they run the risk of being retained through the current policies. as you know it leaves their children at risk to either be left with an abusive partner or
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left for the foster care system. there are very few protocols in place when someone is detained and their children are left behind. these are very serious problems. they also have a chilling effect on public safety. not only will the survivor will never -- i hope this isn't the case and probably never call the police again. in small communities where world travels fast that a victim, survivor of domestic violence called for help and ended up in a ice detainer separated from their children it has a chilling effect on the community. it has a huge effect on public safety so we understand the complexity of this issue and i am so lucky in some ways to have a very narrow lens to be able to try to convince people that this is the right thing to do. i want to thank the leadership that we have seen from the board of
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supervisors, especially from the eight that are currently signed on as co-authors and we are certainly hoping for unanimous support. this will make san francisco a safer city and that's what we all want. san francisco is doing a lot right. as chief suhr said it is delicate but homicides are down, serious crimes are down. we think this is the next right thing for san francisco to do, so we call on our leaders to help us and help the supervisors that are authoring and co-authoring this bill to implement due process now. thank you very much. any questions? >> thank you very much. [applause] next i would like to call up olga -- we will in fact public comment now and call up olga who is president of the seiu seven
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87. >> thank you supervisors and i want to thank you for the collision between labor, clergy and i want to recognize the sheriff and the chief who are in the room. they are doing their job but i am glad that the sheriff is supporting this legislation which is outstanding. as a labor union we serve your constituents and communities but we deal with a lot of other issues besides the contract collective bargaining part of it. we deal with these issues and domestic violence. i think this program is really a con of more things that we have to be submitted to. as a union that represents a number of different nationalities, many members, latinos from central america and mexico as well as african-american it's a really
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big deal that our communities have to be committed to something additionally. we have had to deal with our members questioning whether they can ask or seek from help from the authorities. we had a member a few years ago where ice showed up dressed as police. that member to this day has a hard time asking for help and there is a lot of trust here that we are trying to establish with the authorities. we are in a new police right now. we're at the precipus of putting immigration reform. however, broken even that policy is going to be. for those of you that have been in all of the marps that have been fighting we know it's not going to be a perfect piece of legislation and unfortunately will push more people into the dark. we are in support of this legislation and we stand not as a labor union. we are standing as a community member, as a person as and
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supports this and we hope you encourage other supervisors that have not signed on to this legislation. for ourselves for us to are be identified and singled out as a immigrant and community it's terrible and we think there is a carve out or another program and leave it up to somebody. it's right. it's absolutely wrong to leave it up to somebody to be judge and jury and what if we didn't have a progressive sheriff and what if they said you go and you stay. we're talking about families and count on your support and go through the committee and i want to thank all of the members
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from the coalition who are here from the community. [speaking spanish] thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. we do have a board room of clapping so if we can refrain from clapping. i do appreciate people's enthusiasms and we do this to show support but it gets in the way of having a hearing that can be as concise as can be. i have a couple of speaker cards and i see people lining up over there. i welcome people if they're lined up but i will do the cards first. [calling speaker names] and then we will go onto the list and line i have.
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>> thank you supervisor. i am michael pappas. i am the executive director of the san francisco interfaith council and a member of the city's human rights commission. i come today to lend my voice to many in the community who support supervisor avalos' proposed legislation that would make it illegal for san francisco law enforcement officials to detain someone solely on the basis of immigrant status. since the inception of the sanctuary movement we have a strong and consistent movement of caring and advocating for these residents. this is rooted in our respective theologies and text and they're called into practice which we profess. a perspective which you might not hear today but i thought important to share is in 2009 mayor newsom engaged our council as a member of the 2010 census
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complete count committee. he did so because he appreciated our community's capacity to identify the hard to identify homeless and rim -- immigrants and during this time we worked on the programs. if the city valued these vulnerable residents and self identify during the census might i humblely submit that the city protect them now and offer these important protections. >> thank you very much. next speaker. i will call up a few names as well. [calling speaker names] >> hi. so my name is stacy [inaudible] and the programs
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co-director at community against violence. we are here with some of the members here, two of whom are going to speak to ask you to support this ordinance. as lgbt, people of color and survivors of violence we had many experiences with law enforcement, some of them negative and our communities know what it means to be criminalized. many of the survivors that come to us are also undocumented immigrants and we are coming together as lgbtq people of color community to say that this program is wrong, so we are concerned that s-com undermines due process and creates a precedent and holding people extra time in jail. as was said the detainers require no proof and can increase the trauma particularly for survivors. i will turn it over so you can hear his story.
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>> before that we have a commissioner here with a presentation and i would like to go to her next and then go on. >> thank you. >> i am vera hale and a member of the immigrants rights commission. i was so pleased to see this bill come to light and we had many hearings at immigrants rights and heard people suffering from this deportation and their relatives that are left behind. one of the things i was impressed by when supervisor avalos presented to the immigrants right commission was the fact he had taken care of what i call the law and order people, and i would like to read you the sentence on the next to the last page of the ordinance that says "local law enforcement agencies may continue to collaborate with federal authorities to protect public safety. this includes but not limited to
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participation and joint criminal investigations that are permitted under local policy or applicable state or city law." l i thought that will take care of everything and we don't need any carve out and i still think that we don't need them and i thought you gave excellent explanations why we don't and i hope someone listens to them. i am glad to see that the board of supervisors committee is having a hearing on immigration. i think they're going to be many more issues coming up very soon, and if this bill -- well, if the immigration reform bill does not pass then i think you're going to have to take a greater role, the supervisors are in what goes on in this town. supervisors found that out in 1996 and i hope you will be able to do too but first get this passed.
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>> thank you very much commissioner hale. next speaker please. >> [speaking spanish] >> good afternoon to everybody and thank you very much to the supervisors who are support offing this legislation. i am allen martinez and a survivor of domestic violence. >> [speaking spanish] >> i am here because i want to give my support of the due process for all is approved. >> [speaking spanish] >> for me it's very important to be able to pass these ordinance
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because the immigrants -- those of us that are immigrants in the country are people that are doing good. we are continue to try to keep our families alive and moving forward with our families. >> [speaking spanish] >> our community suffer a lot of abuse and discrimination because of the police, and then the program s-com makes this abuse has worse consequences. [speaking spanish] >> african-american people and latino people are two of the races that are most abused by the police and also by jobs. [speaking spanish] >> we are marginalized and we are se