San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey fights to protect violent illegal alien offenders.

In the ongoing border war, San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey wants to protect even the most violent and atrocious illegal alien felons from prosecution or deportation. While these offenders have murdered, raped and otherwise committed serious crimes against American citizens, it is more important to Sheriff Hennessey to protect the illegal invaders. All of this comes as no surprise though: Sheriff Hennessey is a law enforcer in a sanctuary city.

The top law enforcement official in a major U.S. county is vigorously working to withdraw from a federal program that checks criminals’ immigration status because it violates the area’s sanctuary policies.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who operates the county jails, has for months tried to bail on a program (Secure Communities) that requires local authorities to check the fingerprints of arrestees against a federal database. The idea is to deport dangerous criminals, many of whom have fallen through the cracks over the years.

But the veteran elected sheriff says the arrangement violates San Francisco’s longtime sanctuary law, which forbids public employees and police from asking anyone about their immigration status. The famously liberal city by the bay also offers illegal aliens official government identification cards and all sorts of taxpayer-financed public benefits.

The policies have protected violent criminals from deportation, including those who have been convicted of atrocious felonies. A few years ago a Salvadoran gang member with two felony convictions murdered a father and his two sons because San Francisco law enforcement agencies never turned him over to federal authorities for removal. Secure Communities was implemented nationwide in 2008 precisely to avoid situations like those.

Incredibly, the sheriff’s priority is to continue shielding illegal aliens from deportation even when they commit crimes in the community he’s been elected to protect. Earlier this year Hennessey formally requested that California’s attorney general exempt his agency from participating in Secure Communities and when the request was denied, he asked the feds directly.

These people invade our border, commit crimes against citizens and take advantage of taxpayer funded programs and this Sheriff wants to leave the very folks he is paid to protect at their mercy. That is just fantastic.

And California has the nerve to come to us when they can't pay to support their state. This is ridiculous and pathetic-it must stop.