In San Francisco, any reasonable brakes on sanctuary for illegals are bullied down

American Thinker: To get a whiff of how bad things are in San Francisco – not in its aromatic streets, but in its sanctuary city status – consider two cases both going on around the issue of reasonable modifications toward the city’s extremist succor for illegal aliens.

First, Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of the city who’s now the frontrunner for the California governor’s job.  The Sacramento Bee has the goods:

As mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom in 2008 spearheaded a citywide policy requiring law enforcement officers to report juvenile undocumented immigrants [sic] to Immigration and Customs Enforcement when charged with committing violent felony crimes.

Newsom, a Democrat and the front-runner in the race to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown, now says that was the wrong approach.

“These were people charged … but not convicted.  Some people ultimately were exonerated that got caught up in it,” Newsom said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee.  “I’ll just say this to my critics: fair game.  Looking back, there were things we could have done differently.  I’m very honest about that.”

The context was the 2008 MS-13 slaughter of an entire family, the Bologna family, in San Francisco by illegals who were well known to cops for their past murders.  There also was the 2015 pierside murder of 30-year-old Kate Steinle, for which the five-times-deported illegal got off scot-free, as the jury suggested that it wanted to punish President Trump.  Lots of illegals, young or otherwise, pretty well know they have nothing to worry about on the deportation front when they live in San Francisco and commit new crimes on top of their old ones.  Newsom caved following activist blasts from the left.

Newsom’s move was a reasonable modification to the city’s sanctuary city law that had created sanctuary for avowed criminals and enabled them to commit new crimes without fear of the migra.  At the time, it had widespread public support.  But the fringe left, led by a top Democratic Party operative named David Campos, a former illegal, an ex-Board of Supervisors extremist, and now a leftist with a cushy city job in nearby Santa Clara County, excoriated him for it.  And Newsom caved.