Hey, San Francisco: How's that sanctuary city thing working for you?

A jobs program for illegal immigrant felons? What could possibly go wrong?

The assault on Amanda Kiefer at dusk in San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights was extraordinary enough for its cruelty.

A stranger, later identified as Alexander Izaguirre, snatched her purse and hopped into an SUV, police say. The driver sped forward to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and the driver laughing. The driver slammed on the brakes, propelling Kiefer to the pavement. Her skull fractured. Blood oozed from her ear.

Only after the July 2008 attack did Kiefer learn of the crime's political ramifications. Izaguirre, police told her, was an illegal immigrant who had pleaded guilty four months earlier to a drug felony for selling cocaine in the seedy Tenderloin area.

He had avoided prison when he was picked for a jobs program run by San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, now a candidate for California's top law enforcement post. In effect, Harris' office had been allowing Izaguirre and other illegal immigrants to stay out of prison by training them for jobs they cannot legally hold.

Harris (pictured) claimed she did not know there were illegals in the program and has taken steps to fix the problem, which we assume is to be meant as not allowing any more illegals into the program. Amazingly, she is going to allow those illegals still in the program to finish the program and have their criminal records cleared.

Harris falls back on the tired canard that it is not local law enforcement’s responsibility to enforce federal immigration law. It is certainly their responsibility, though, not to be entirely ignorant of it,either.

We’re curious as to how, exactly, Harris is going to “fix” the problem now if it is not their responsibility to enforce immigration law. It’s apparent that this program run by Harris will most likely remain willfully ignorant of the legal status of the criminals it enrolls and will remain complicit in the practice of illegal immigration.

Kiefer, who packages medical devices for a living, said she has left California for good, in part because of the trauma of nearly having been killed on her way to dinner last summer in Pacific Heights. Nearly a year later, she remains baffled that San Francisco authorities ever let Izaguirre and other illegal immigrant felons back onto the streets.

"If they're committing crimes," she said, "I think there's something wrong that they're not being deported."

We’ve got a great idea for the Governor with respect to where the next round of budget cuts should be directed.