S.F. fund aids teen felons who are illegals S.F. mayor's office granted over $650,000 for immigrants in Juvenile Probation Dept.

This June, 2007 family photograph shows homicide suspect Edwin Ramos with his wife Amelia at a party. Photo courtesy Rosa Martinez Ran on: 06-26-2008 Edwin Ramos, 21, a suspected gang member arrested in the triple slaying, has a wife and baby. Ran on: 06-26-2008 Edwin Ramos, a suspected gang member arrested during a midnight raid, has a wife and baby. Ran on: 06-27-2008 Edwin Ramos is charged with murder in the shooting deaths of the three Bolognas. ALSO Ran on: 06-29-2008 Edwin Ramos, a suspected gang member, was arrested and booked on murder charges. Ran on: 06-28-2008 Edwin Ramos Ran on: 07-20-2008 Edwin Ramos was convicted of two violent crimes as an illegal immigrant teenager. Ran on: 07-20-2008 Edwin Ramos was convicted of two violent crimes as an illegal immigrant teenager. Ran on: 07-22-2008 Homicide suspect Edwin Ramos, with his wife Amelia. Ran on: 07-22-2008 Ran on: 07-22-2008 Edwin Ramos Ran on: 07-24-2008 Edwin Ramos hasn't shown that his ''fair-trial rights have been jeopardized,'' the judge says. Ran on: 07-24-2008 Ran on: 07-27-2008 Edwin Ramos, suspect in S.F. slaying. ALSO Ran on: 08-03-2008 Dianne Feinstein made S.F. a sanctuary city in 1985. ALSO Ran on: 08-31-2008 Ran on: 01-08-2009 Edwin Ramos, accused of killing a father and two sons, had same lawyer as man who turned him in. Ran on: 01-08-2009 Ran on: 01-08-2009 Ran on: 01-08-2009 Edwin Ramos, accused of killing a father and two sons, had same lawyer as man who turned him in. Ran on: 01-08-2009 Ran on: 01-08-2009 less This June, 2007 family photograph shows homicide suspect Edwin Ramos with his wife Amelia at a party. Photo courtesy Rosa Martinez Ran on: 06-26-2008 Edwin Ramos, 21, a suspected gang member arrested in the ... more Photo: Courtesy Rosa Martinez Photo: Courtesy Rosa Martinez Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close S.F. fund aids teen felons who are illegals 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

As San Francisco's juvenile justice system shielded young illegal immigrant felons from possible deportation, Mayor Gavin Newsom's office gave grants totaling more than $650,000 to nonprofit agencies to provide the underage offenders with free services - everything from immigration attorneys to housing assistance to "arts and cultural affirmation activities," city records show.

Newsom has said the city began its policy of not referring young immigrant offenders to federal authorities for deportation under previous mayors, and that he reversed the practice after he became aware of it this year. However, in 2006, the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice - a community outreach arm of Newsom's office - created a grant program specifically designed to assist, rather than deport, "undocumented, unaccompanied and monolingual" immigrants who were in the custody of the city's Juvenile Probation Department or on juvenile probation, according to city documents.

The city provided $467,000 to three nonprofit agencies under the grant program from mid-2006 and mid-2008, records show, and another $200,000 was approved for two of the agencies for this budget year.

Newsom's office created the program, in part, to deal with an influx of Central American youths being housed on drug charges at San Francisco's juvenile hall, according to those familiar with the grant. Crowding at juvenile hall had led to protests among youth advocate groups.

"A key goal of this project is to assist these individuals to successfully navigate the juvenile justice system and achieve stability within the community setting," according to a 2006 invitation issued by Newsom's office for agencies to bid for grant money.

The grant language said the youths "require extensive support" to overcome "multiple complex barriers" in the justice system.

Money for the effort came from the pot of discretionary funding that the mayor's office receives each year as part of the city budget.

'Proud tradition'

The goal of the grant program, according to the request for bids, was to further the city's "proud tradition as a haven for immigrants."

In addition to immigration attorneys, Newsom's office envisioned the program helping young felons obtain housing, food, clothing, educational and vocational training, English-language instruction, medical care and mental health assessments.

The program would also provide "spiritual, cultural enrichment and recreation activities."

Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of California and a critic of San Francisco's past policy of not turning over undocumented juvenile immigrant felons for deportation, said the mayor's office was funding programs that might be violating federal law.

"What it means to me," he said, "is they took the concept of sanctuary, and they applied it in a way that it is as close to harboring as I've ever seen."

Federal law bars people from knowingly harboring undocumented immigrants. Russoniello said the city grant program relied on young immigrant offenders staying in the juvenile justice system, away from federal authorities who might want to deport them.

"Then, they accommodate them by providing all these services to continue their unlawful status," he said. "The city, in this case, is using taxpayer dollars to basically endear itself to activist groups that need funding for their activities."

When the program was created in 2006, the head of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice was Allen Nance. He is now the No. 2 official in the Juvenile Probation Department, which is responsible for housing underage offenders and advising Juvenile Court justices on how their cases should be handled.

In an interview, Nance denied that providing services to juvenile illegal immigrant offenders was helping to shield them from deportation.

"That was simply not what the grant was," he said.

He said some of the youths were victims of abuse, abandonment or neglect, were seeking legal status refuge in the United States and should be able to do that through the immigration courts. That was the reason for providing them with legal help, he said.

Crime-fighting tool

Nance said the effort was also part of a "local action plan" to reduce juvenile crime. "We needed to work to correct those problems involving juvenile delinquency," he said. "We needed to find ways to intervene early on."

Nance said the idea was to help immigrant youths who couldn't speak English, weren't living with parents and were committing crimes, to find "services to deal with the challenges they were facing."

"All kids face, as adolescents, making bad decisions at times," Nance said. "The goal of the program was ... to correct any signs of delinquent behavior and afford youth an opportunity to continue to live a crime-free life, which is our expectation of any youth."

Kevin Ryan, Russoniello's predecessor at the U.S. attorney's office and now the head of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, declined to respond to Russoniello's suggestion that the city was violating federal law.

"I'm taking a look at this," he said, "and not going to comment on any particular accusation. I'm aware of the harboring statute. I'm just taking a look at it."

'Top to bottom' review

"If the law is not being followed, we will fix the problem," said Nathan Ballard, Newsom's spokesman, adding that the mayor has told Ryan to conduct a "top to bottom" review of the city's sanctuary policies and practices.

Ryan said he will decide "whether we should change our practices going forward."

The grant proposal was suggested by David Onek, then the second-in-command of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. Newsom recently named him to the Police Commission.

From 1999 to 2002, before joining the mayor's office, Onek was a staff attorney for Legal Services for Children - one of the agencies that the mayor's office later selected to receive grant money. The nonprofit took in more than $164,000 in city money from 2006 to 2008 to help illegal immigrants in the juvenile justice system, city records show.

Onek declined to comment last week, noting that he no longer works for the mayor's office.

Legal aid for migrant kids

Legal Services for Children advised a total of 52 youths in San Francisco's juvenile justice system about their immigration status and legal rights, said the center's executive director, Shannan Wilber.

Wilber said that of the 52 immigrants, 25 were ultimately provided immigration attorneys free of charge. Of those, seven have obtained legal status in the United States, seven dropped out of the program and the immigration cases for 11 are still pending, she said.

Wilber said the offenders' efforts to seek legal status in immigration court would be jeopardized if they were forced into detention hearings, where the burden is on them to show why they should not be deported.

She said the juveniles also need legal help in the immigration court system, because many of them have been brought to this country by drug traffickers they are reluctant to identify for fear of retaliation.

Another agency that received funding from the mayor's office, Mission Neighborhood Centers, used the $150,000 it received from 2006 to 2008 for what it described as "case intervention" for immigrant felons being held at juvenile hall.

"These youth need assistance in housing, education, job placement and immigration status," the group said in its grant statement. It said it would locate eligible offenders through "street outreach" and work with the public defender's office.

The staffer listed as the contact on the group's grant application, Tracy Gallardo-Brown, now works as a community builder for the city's Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. She did not return calls seeking comment.

Santiago Ruiz, executive director of Mission Neighborhood Centers, said he expects an additional $100,000 from the Mayor's Office of Community Investment, formerly the Office of Community Development, this year under the grant. He said his group has been working to get high school equivalency diplomas for former gang members as well as immigrants.

"They are at-risk individuals - most likely they are recent immigrants," Ruiz said. "Whether they are here legally, we are not even supposed to ask. The idea is not to discourage people immediately about their status."

He said the agency does not help youths convicted of violent crimes. "These are behavioral issues that are beyond our ability to provide services," Ruiz said.

Another grant recipient, the Mission-based Instituto Familiar de la Raza, obtained $143,000 over two years and is due for another $100,000 this year. The group's director, Estela Garcia, did not return calls seeking comment.

Range of activities

According to its grant statement, the agency uses the money for a case management program for immigrant youths in the juvenile justice system to provide "a wide range of activities including informational workshops, assistance with accessing referrals to educational and vocational placement, immigration information and mental health services."

"Youth receiving services have the opportunity to enroll into our arts and cultural affirmation activities," the group said.

The grant program was not without controversy, even among other nonprofits. When the mayor's office started the effort, a coalition of 20 nonprofit agencies called the Juvenile Justice Providers Association filed a request with the mayor's office to review the bidding process, said Jessica Hazard al-Tawqi, then the head of the coalition.

Al-Tawqi, who now works as a program officer for the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, would not say what her concerns had been, other than they were not about the goals of the program. "It was a lot of money," she said, "for a lot of services."

Newsom's office has renewed the grant program for another year, but with a twist.

In June, the city awarded Mission Neighborhood Centers and Instituto Familiar de la Raza $100,000 each to continue the efforts they began in 2006. However, in the grant program's title, Newsom's office has removed the reference to "undocumented" immigrants.

-- To read past Chronicle coverage of the immigrant sanctuary program and policies - and the impact in San Francisco - go to sfgate.com/ZEKC