S.F. Supervisors Adopt Sanctuary Resolution; Mayor Plans to Sign It

Supervisors, on an 8-3 vote, Monday passed a resolution telling city employees, including police, that they need not report law-abiding Salvadorans or Guatemalans or cooperate with immigration authorities in arresting such people.

The resolution, which Mayor Dianne Feinstein said she will sign, declares the city a sanctuary for refugees from the Central American countries.

Despite the Reagan Administration’s opposition, similar resolutions have been passed recently in Los Angeles; West Hollywood; Berkeley; Chicago; St. Paul, Minn.; and Cambridge, Mass.

“We are not asking anyone to do anything illegal. We have got to extend our hand to these people. If these people go home, they die. . . . They are asking us to let them stay,” Supervisor Nancy Walker said.

The board also approved, 11 to 0, an ordinance that would prevent the city from investing in or entering into contracts with businesses with links to South Africa.

The measure, a protest of South Africa’s policy of racial segregation, must be approved upon a second reading in two weeks, after which Feinstein will decide whether to sign it.

Willie Kennedy, a co-sponsor of both ordinances, denied that the supervisors are “meddling in foreign affairs. . . .”

“I think we’re dealing with human rights issues, not foreign affairs,” he said.

The investment ordinance would exempt contracts worth less than $5,000 and existing contracts with companies that have dealings in South Africa. Companies that already have contracts with the city would be required to divest before their contracts could be renewed, Kennedy said.