Sanctuary City policy in El Paso

el paso is a sanctuary city in the sense that law enforcement does not ask for immigration status. but unlike some places, law enforcement agencies do work together here when criminals are released. “i’ll never get to tell m sister that i love her again … ” a brother grieves for his sister … who authorities say was killed in the sanctuary city of san francisco by francisco sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times. “my job is to deal with the community safety in el paso and to do that i need the cooperation of everybody here.” when the san francisco sheriff’s office dropped a drug charge against sanchez, they failed to notify the feds, who wanted to deport him after spending time in federal prison for repeatedly sneaking back into the country. “could that happen here?” “no, it would not have. “why wouldn’t it have happene here?” “because we don’t want to release criminals back on the street … clearly the federal government had an interest in that individual … and when the state charges were cleared we would have immediately notified them and they would have come and gotten him before we would have released him.” el paso sheriff richard wiles said there are two ways the federal government determines if there is someone in jail here they have an interest in. “one is they get a copy of ou booking list that we produce every 24 hours its public record anybody can have access to it … and they review that and if there’s somebody of interest they’ll come and interview them … and we allow them access into the jail and they can put a detainer.” wiles says they electronically send fingerprints to the state and federal governments of anyone booked on a class b misdemeanor or above, “we need to work with the federal government to make sure that we do what is in the best interest of the community … to release that person back into the community is a shame and clearly in this case it resulted in the death of a 32 year-old woman.” immigration and customs enforcement in el paso sent us this statement: “ice in el paso works closely with local law enforcement. these agencies routinely honor ice detainers, which are placed on foreign born individuals, arrested on criminal charges.” “this mutual cooperation help protect public safety by removing criminal aliens from the united states.” exactly the cooperation that did not happen in the sanctuary city of san francisco. rick and estela. another live look at the city