RSSIllegal immigrants find welcome mat
Carolyn Hileman - The Voice | April 6, 2008
San Francisco’s advertisement says city won’t report them to authorities
By JESSE MCKINLEY
New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — The city of San Francisco has started an advertising push with a very specific target market: illegal immigrants. And while the advertisements will come in a bundle of languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese — they all carry the same message: You are safe here.
In what may be the first such campaign of its kind, the city plans to publish multilanguage brochures and fill the airwaves with advertisements relaying assurance that San Francisco will not report them to federal immigration authorities.
Mayor Gavin Newsom said the campaign was simply an amplification of a long-standing position of not cooperating with immigration raids or other enforcement. The city passed a so-called sanctuary ordinance in 1989.
The television and radio campaign will tell immigrants they have “safe access” to public services, including schools, health clinics and — perhaps most importantly — the police, something that local law enforcement officials say is a chronic problem in emigre communities.
San Francisco is not alone in its sanctuary status; New York, Detroit and Washington have policies that discourage the police from enforcing immigration law. Nevertheless, the campaign’s announcement prompted a round of eye-rolling among anti-immigration forces in California and Washington, many of whom are still galled by the city’s 2007 decision to grant identification cards to anyone who could prove residence, regardless of legal status.
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