Prometheus 6

San Francisco to Halt 'Sanctuary' Policy
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 3, 2008; A02

LOS ANGELES, July 2 -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that the city would begin handing over for deportation juvenile illegal immigrants with drug convictions, reversing a controversial policy of flying the youths back to their home countries at the city's expense.

The flights, rooted in a 1989 ordinance declaring the city a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants, ceased this spring after the U.S. attorney threatened to prosecute officials for harboring criminals.

About the same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a city probation official in the Houston airport along with two Honduran juveniles the official was putting on a plane to Tegucigalpa, the capital.