Donald Trump himself may not have caught wind yet of the situation involving SF Assemblymember Catherine Stefani's field representative, a Hong Kong national who immigration officials say overstayed a work visa, and is now in ICE detention. But Mayor Daniel Lurie is now taking an uncharacteristic stand against the White House and immigration officials.
As we've seen over the last 20 months of the Daniel Lurie administration, Lurie has adopted a strategy of staying mostly silent on President Trump and his policies. This strategy paid dividends when Los Angeles was under siege by federal agents and the national guard last summer, and just as Trump was planning to do the same thing here, he got talked out of it by a couple of billionaires who convinced him that Lurie was doing good things in San Francisco and he should be left alone.
Now, Lurie appears to be putting his foot down over the detention last week of former supervisor and SF Assemblymember Catherine Stefani's staffer, Ho Yin Mo. As SFist discussed earlier, Mo was taken into ICE custody at the Las Vegas airport, with immigration officials saying that Mo was in the country on an expired visa.
In a statement given, oddly, to the UK Daily Mail, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said, "An illegal alien being employed by a California State Assemblyman woman is outrageous."
"Assemblyman woman" is a nice construction...
"This takes sanctuary city to a whole new level," Bis continued. "Radical Democrats continue to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens — even employing illegal aliens to work in their political offices."
Stefani, meanwhile, says he was legally permitted to work for the state and was authorized to work in the US. She has said that Ho Yin Mo, who is familiar to Chinese American residents in SF because he worked as a news anchor on a local Chinese language news broadcast, was helpful in being a trusted voice in the community.
An unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson quoted by the Daily Mail said that "work authorization or a pending application does NOT confer legal status in the United States." The spokesperson added that Mo's visa required him to leave the country back in May 2020, and they said, regarding the policy of arresting people at airports, that the department had "reversed the horrendous Biden-era policy that allowed aliens in our country illegally to jet around our country."
Lurie penned a letter to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, as the Chronicle reports today, formally requesting that Mo be released.
"In his role, he serves the San Francisco community, and he does so with great care and commitment," Lurie reportedly wrote. "He is a positive addition to our city."
Lurie added, "He is a contributing member of society and I do not believe he poses as a danger or threat to anyone."
As the Chronicle notes, despite the Trump administration running roughshod over established law for nearly two years now, the federal government is not legally permitted to keep immigrants with pending cases in detention unless they are deemed dangerous or a flight risk.
Per the Daily Mail, the SF Board of Supervisors has written their own letter on Mo's behalf, saying he "has been an especially important point of contact for San Francisco’s Chinese American communities."
Previously: SF Assemblymember’s Staffer Detained By ICE at Las Vegas Airport
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