Text by Sarah Phelan
My editor Tim Redmond just asked why just every story about the city’s sanctuary ordinance seems to start with Ramos?
It’s a good question, especially since the Campos legislation would ensure that folks like Ramos would be deported, “not once, but twice,” as Campos puts it.
So why does the Ramos red herring keep popping up? Maybe it’s because anti-immigrant groups keep mentioning Ramos in an effort to keep the media focused on “security” issues, and not on “child welfare” arguments.
Most arguments around juvenile immigrant policy issues typically split into these two camps–the security camp and the child welfare camp– as noted in a 2009 Congressional Research Services report on juvenile immigrants by Chad C. Haddal.
In his 28-page report, Haddal observes that the debate over policy questions regarding unaccompanied alien children, or UAC, (as the federal government describes juvenile immigrants who appear to be here without family) “has polarized in recent years between two camps: child welfare advocates and immigration security advocates.”
As Haddal observes, tthe child welfare group “has for decades advocated a more refugee-oriented policy toward UAC, arguing that the UAC are largely victims of trafficking, abuse and economic circumstances. Security advocates, by contrast, advocate a more restrictive policy of deportation and repatriation, charging that unauthorized immigration is associated with increased community violence and illicit activities such as gang memberships. The UAC policy question is how to provide for the security of the United States while simultaneously safeguarding the rights and safe treatment of unaccompanied alien children.”
What’s interesting about Haddal’s analysis is that it poses the question of why the “child welfare” side of the argument fell by the wayside in San Francisco, under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s leadership.
Could it be because the mayor’s criminal justice department was dominated by Republican leaders who had Newsom’s ear last summer, just as he was making his doomed entry into the gubernatorial race? And that now that Newsom has let himself be backed into a policy corner, he doesn’t seem to be able to acknowledge the child welfare argument, let alone debate it with Campos in a public arena?