Hennessey to Brown and ICE (again): SF wants out of Secure-Comm

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Sheriff Mike Hennessey has sent a letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown and Department of Homeland Security officials David Venturella and Marc A. Rapp, reaffirming San Francisco’s desire to opt out of Secure-Communities, a program U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activated in San Francisco in June.

In his August 31 letter, Hennessey observes that on August 17, ICE issued a communication that suggests there is now a procedure to address opt-out requests.

‘The ICE communication, Secure Communities: Setting the Record Straight, specifies that, ‘If a jurisdiction does not wish to activate on its scheduled date in the Secure Communities deployment plan, it must formally notify its state identification and ICE in writing (email, letter of facsimile),” Hennessey states. “Upon receipt of that information, ICE will request a meeting with federal partners, the jurisdiction, and the state to discuss any issues and come to a resolution, which may include adjusting the jurisdiction’s activation date in, or removing the jurisdiction from, the deployment plan.”

Hennessey acknowledges that San Francisco County has already been activated in accordance with ICE’s Secure-Comm deployment plan.

“However, as you know, I sought to opt out, in writing, to both the California Department of Justice and Secure Communities,” Hennessey wrote. “I was told at that time in a telephone conversation with Mr. Rapp that there was no provision for a local jurisdiction to opt out. The information provided in Secure Communities: Setting the Record Straight would suggest that there is now a procedure in place to address such requests.”

Hennessey ends his letter by saying he is looking forward to meeting all parties and “coming to a mutually agreeable resolution.”

So, stay tuned….

Comments

I say put this to a vote of the people. Hennessey is just another politically correct politician and does not speak for all the citizens of SF.

We will be sending messages to AG Brown that WE don't want to opt out.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 01, 2010 @ 8:50 am

I doubt that Brown or ICE will agree to Hennessey's request. I thank Hennessey for writing to them, but it was probably a waste of the paper he wrote it on. I have no confidence in either. I can only speak for myself and would never be so arrogant to speak for others or for the community. The paranoid racists who are so afraid of brown-skinned people (that’s what this is really about) would like to see the voters vote on this, but fortunately our U.S. Constitution protects the "minority from the tyranny of the majority." If most things in our society had been voted on, we would likely still be in the Dark Ages with slavery, women would not be allowed to vote, we would have beheadings, public stonings and all other sorts of barbaric and backward laws. Such laws would be fine with the paranoid racists. But we have the Constitution, which takes precedence over their constant fears and paranoia.

Posted by Guest Bárbara Chelsai on Sep. 01, 2010 @ 1:57 pm

One third of San Francisco's population is foreign born. Even more are descendants of immigrants who arrived, not so long ago, without paperwork. And many were the targets of racist policies (The Chinese Exclusion Act comes to mind.) So, I'm not so sure that voters would support a program that reports their friends and community members to ICE regardless of whether they have actually committed serious crimes.

Posted by sarah on Sep. 01, 2010 @ 3:08 pm

And when that was submitted to the voters of San Francisco is got a big, fat "NO" from us.

What's ironic about The Guardian is the miasma of group-think that pervades these articles. There's a complete inability to believe that the priorities of The Guardian are not those of every other San Franciscan. That if just another article is written about the need for The Guardian's priorities to be put in place then eventually - everyone will agree!

Quit drinking the Kool Aid.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Sep. 01, 2010 @ 6:28 pm

some observations

They seem to think that all they need to do is talk to you about a subject and you will see things their way, if after a good talking at they have not convinced you, all you need is more monologue.

If after they have hounded you for quite some time about their revealed world view, that you have never expressed any interest in, they will give up by saying something like "you seem really smart, I thought you would understand this"... usually at a higher pitch and somewhat louder than the rest of the monologue.

Putting things that work to their advantage in populist language means that being against it is being against "the people"(tm), they get to decide what the people want, although they dismiss others who claim to speak for the people, such as born again Christians.

The constant search for hypocrisy in others, while having some drawn out reason as to why they get to have things every which way. For example, they complain that Newsom is flaunting constitutional government when he ignores Campos' s law, they lament not being able to legislate gun rights away, then bemoan their loss of rights to the law and order crowd.

It's just a philosophy of getting over.

Posted by matlock on Sep. 02, 2010 @ 11:29 am

the citizens or businesses of the city can opt out of.

In all cases the cheerleaders for freedom have created more limits on people and more fees and taxes, that we can't opt out of.

The whole ROTC thing created less options to be replaced by even worse PC indoctrination than the military.

The smokes ban at some pharmacies had no way for the pharmacies to "opt out" and the new proposed ban also has no way to "opt out."

Prop H, the progressive hand gun ban on law abiding citizens of the city had no opt out option for people in the city wishing to maintain their constitutional rights.

I can not think of any law that the Guardian crowd has proposed and enacted that had an "opt out" option.

So now the lovers of the state are whining that they want to "opt out."

I love how this all turns out, when things are going your way the government is fabulous and look at all the great things it does for us, like banning things and options, when it's not going your way have a tantrum and complain about the authoritarian state.

Posted by matlock on Sep. 02, 2010 @ 9:47 am

All anyone is complaining about is a lack of due process. I thought that was a core American value. But I'm an immigrant, so what would I know.

Posted by sarah on Sep. 09, 2010 @ 8:15 pm