A San Francisco lawmaker who was one of the most fervent supporters of giving illegal immigrants the right to vote in school board elections now wants the city to spend $500,000 annually to warn illegal immigrants about the potential risks associated with registering to vote.
San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, as the San Francisco Chronicle noted in a Monday report, was on the school board when she urged voters to back Proposition N—the measure’s passage “made San Francisco the first California city to give noncitizens to the right to vote in any election.”
Illegal immigrants will be able to vote in San Francisco for the first time this November, and “warning notices” to let voters know that “the feds may have access to their personal information” would have to be “translated into as many as 48 languages and circulated not just to schools, but also preschools and community resource centers,” according to the Chronicle.
There are reportedly about 44,000 illegal immigrants living in San Francisco, and the city’s elections director is creating a special form for illegal immigrants “that would require them to give their address before they could cast a school-board ballot.”
But because President Donald Trump’s administration has decided to enforce immigration laws—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained more than 200 illegal immigrants last week in the Bay Area—Fewer thinks illegal immigrants “who choose to vote should know some of the risks involved.”
Interim San Francisco Mark Farrell, who lurched to the left on immigration last week when he said he was willing to go to jail to keep the city a “sanctuary state,” reportedly is not fond of the idea.
“If the Board of Supervisors believes another outreach program is needed, they should work with the Department of Elections,” he reportedly said. The Chronicle notes that Farrell “was the lone supervisor to oppose putting Prop. N on the ballot in 2016, calling it a ‘slippery slope.’”
When asked if ICE would potentially subpoena voter rolls to go after illegal immigrants in the city, an agency spokesman reportedly said, “no comment.”