The point is that the article claims that practice petered out in the 17th century. I show otherwise. The article also states that one reason the practice was abolished was due to criminals leaving their sanctuary to commit more crimes.
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana
The city of San Francisco did not give Lopez-Sanchez (the alleged murderer) sanctuary in the same way as described in the article. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was free to detain Lopez-Sanchez at any time while he was in San Francisco, and then deport him.
What San Francisco did was refuse to comply with the ICE request to detain Lopez-Sanchez, because he didn't have a violent record and because ICE did not get an arrest warrant. In situations like this, ICE apparently does not want to go through the process of getting a warrant, preferring instead to treat local law enforcement as an extension of federal immigration enforcement.
But in the U.S.'s federal system, it is not the responsibility of local law enforcement to simply do whatever the feds them to do. The responsibility of SFPD is to the people of San Francisco, not to ICE. Obviously in this case the result was horrific, but up to this point the policy was in place because the City believed it better served the needs of the people of San Francisco, and the people apparently agreed.
There's obviously a good case to be made for local police departments to comply with ICE requests. On the other hand, I find it disturbing that ICE could simply order my local police department to detain me (a US citizen) without getting a warrant, just on their say-so. As someone with a strong respect for the U.S. federal system, I found your comparison to medieval sanctuary to be cheap and inflammatory. Hence my earlier comment.
> The city of San Francisco did not give Lopez-Sanchez (the alleged murderer) sanctuary in the same way as described in the article...I found your comparison to medieval sanctuary to be cheap and inflammatory.
Every time I touch on an immigration related topic on HN, I swear it is the last time, but because it is so personal to me I just simply can't resist.
OP falls into the classical logical error equating undocumented/unlawful/illegal immigrants as criminals. It is just simply impossible for certain individuals/groups to wrap their minds around the simple fact that ones immigration status does not and can not constitute a crime in and of itself. Almost everyone is aware there is civil and criminal laws, I also think everyone knows immigration law is civil in nature, but you will never stop those with a certain bias from wrongfully projecting immigration status as a criminal issue, hence the existence of terms such as "illegal immigrant" for the mere fact that is sounds closer to a criminal label...its sad really.
I think many people use the term "illegal immigrant" not because it is pejorative but because it seems like a natural way to distinguish from "legal immigrant". And (if true) I wasn't aware that all immigration law is civil. I'd presumed that there was a parallel with "criminal trespass", but perhaps that phrase is itself a misnomer. Could you point to some sources that explain the difference between "unlawful", "illegal", and "criminal" as you understand them?
>And (if true) I wasn't aware that all immigration law is civil. I'd presumed that there was a parallel with "criminal trespass", but perhaps that phrase is itself a misnomer.
"If true"...like I said there are just certain groups/individuals who can not wrap their minds around the idea immigration status is separate and distinct from criminal law. The crazy thing to me is not even where these ideas come from, I guess it just doesn't matter, but the length people go to in order to maintain their present state of thought. Just do a simple Google Search of "is immigration law civil or criminal", you don't even need to click a result, Google gives you the Answer.
>Could you point to some sources that explain the difference between "unlawful", "illegal", and "criminal" as you understand them?
Its not so much as I understand them, as their definitions in a legal context.
"Unlawful"/"illegal" are terms that may be used interchangeably and by definition indicate the violation of a law (either civil or criminal), so all criminal acts are unlawful/illegal but not all unlawful/illegal acts are criminal. For example, the Court ruled that Apple unlawfully/illegally fixed e-book prices[1], yet that is not criminal nor to we go around calling Apple an "illegal company". That is the pejorative nature of "illegal" in the immigration context, where it implies criminality...in fact is likely the reason you didn't know immigration law is civil and presumed a parallel with criminal trespass.
Source: myself, but I can point you to Black's Law Dictionary, I feel confident their definitions will be consistent with my own.
Trespass is a good example. The law is split into civil and criminal law and depending on jurisdiction and sometimes the status of the land owner (i.e. military, etc), trespass can fall into either camp.
If you break criminal law, you are committing a crime and can be prosecuted and punished for that, on the other hand civil law is characterized as a dispute between two parties and the only crime you can then commit is to flout a court ruling on the matter, which may then progress into criminal law if it is serious enough, or may be referred back for yet more civil proceedings. However even if you do flout a court ruling, and the process becomes criminal, what you originally did remains civil, it is your subsequent conduct towards the court that can be judged as criminal.
> What San Francisco did was refuse to comply with the ICE request to detain Lopez-Sanchez, because he didn't have a violent record and because ICE did not get an arrest warrant. In situations like this, ICE apparently does not want to go through the process of getting a warrant, preferring instead to treat local law enforcement as an extension of federal immigration enforcement.
ICE requested San Francisco to notify them when Lopez-Sanches was going to be released from jail in San Francisco so that ICE could pick him up then [1]. All San Francisco was being asked to do was make a phone call. Do you have a source for the claim that ICE asked San Francisco to detain him for them?
An ICE detainer is a request (not a court order) that a state or local police department detain an individual for 48 hours (excluding holidays and weekends) while ICE decides whether or not they want to take someone into custody for consideration for deportation:
In retrospect, I probably exaggerated ICE's power wrt my local police department. Still, compliance with a detainer means an arrested citizen can be detained for up to five calendar days (48 hours + 3 day weekend) without charge, or indeed any sort of judicial review, merely on ICE's say-so.
Your first example is church sanctuary, but is a pretty isolated case, the second is nothing to do with church sanctuary, and both cases seem picked, not to make a point about the practice of church sanctuary, but rather to stir fud about migration.
I think what you are trying to express, in your own quixotic way, is that the phrase "murdered for taking a stroll" belies the complex causes of the murder.
And he's a "troll" because he justified this conversation-prompt with a genuine value-add
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana