LGBT Rally in Support of Sanctuary City and ID Program

LGBT Rally in Support of Sanctuary City and ID Program


What: Press Conference and Rally
When: Tuesday September 16th at 12:00pm
Where: Steps of City Hall (Polk btwn. Grove and McAllister)

The LGBTQ community supports the preservation of San Francisco as a Sanctuary City and the implementation of the Municipal ID program.


Due to recent raids by ICE and attacks on San Francisco’s Sanctuary Ordinance by The Chronicle and anti-immigrant groups, Pride at Work, along with a coalition of other LGBTQ and immigrant rights organizations and it’s leaders will gather on Tuesday September 16th at the steps of City Hall to speak out to keep San Francisco as a Sanctuary City and to move forward with the Municipal ID program.



Pride Work denounces the ICE raid Thursday September 11th, the recent raid on a family's home in Visitation Valley and the May 2008 raid at El Balazo Taquerias. We call on all Federal, State, and Local officials to join with us in denouncing these raids. We are deeply troubled by the constant racist scapegoating by the Chronicle, and believe that their rhetoric is fostering an environment in which ICE has, without a warrant, invaded a family's home and interrogated a 15 year old girl without representation by an attorney and without a guardian. We are also troubled by the stunning silence by the City Administration in the face of this unconstitutional and egregious conduct. LGBT communities also understand what is to have families torn apart by unjust laws. While legislation moves in other states to outlaw queer adoption, we understand that true family values, ones that keep healthy families intact, are often not seen as valuable by policy makers. Unjust immigration laws destroy families and harm workplaces. The federal government is misdirecting their efforts and tax dollars to heavy enforcement instead of focusing on the immigration backlog. It's time for a humane approach to our immigration policies that give a real chance for citizenship.

Pride at Work calls on the City Administration to recommit to the City Sanctuary Policy. The preservation of San Francisco as a sanctuary city is vitally important to the LGBTQ community. Every year undocumented immigrants come to the United States fleeing economic and social hardships in their homelands, including persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity expression. The Sanctuary Ordinance in San Francisco is necessary to many undocumented LGBTQ persons and specifically important to transgender persons. San Francisco's Sanctuary Policy must be made real by consistent policies that uphold individual privacy and do not waste scarce City funds enforcing laws that are the responsibility of the federal government.

Pride at Work calls on the Administration to implement the City's ID program. Halting the Municipal ID program would jeopardize the health and safety of undocumented individuals of the transgender community . In addition to the immigrant LGBT community, the transgender community is depending on City ID Card being issued this fall as an ID that represents our gender identity.We call on the City Administration to set a date, and stick to it.


Pride at Work calls on the City's Juvenile Probation Department to halt the practice of referring to ICE children that are arrested and booked for alleged felonies, and to return authority to the San Francisco Juvenile Court System. Immigrant youth, disparagingly characterized as criminals are forced to flee their home countries in dire straits and arrive alone in a country in which they are marginalized, exploited and coerced into an underground world of drug dealing. The LGBT community sees the connection to our own young people who run away from homophobic families, arrive in San Francisco, and often are exploited as sex workers as they don't have the resources to take care of themselves. We need a humane approach to dealing with youth, and call for the return of this authority to the San Francisco Juvenile Court System.