YEP.

Just $20. At a press conference, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi wondered why the feds acted on this warrant 20 years after it was issued, after having had Lopez-Sanchez so many times in the past. But they did.

So, once they called San Francisco’s jailkeepers, it was protocol to pick him up (even though prosecutors dismissed the charges soon after). That’s when things started to get controversial: Now he was sitting in SF’s county jail, which meant he fell under the city’s sanctuary city policy — an approach which began in the 80s as Central Americans escaping bloody civil wars moved into the city, and meant San Francisco would not spend city money to enforce federal immigration laws.

In 2013, the city passed a law to not hold inmates when immigration authorities requested to pick them up when the inmates were done serving county time, known as a “detainer” in bureaucratic jargon. The law made an exception for certain violent felons.

Then, Mirkarimi started a policy earlier this year, in which no inmate would be handed over to immigration on a detainer, after courts found detainers to be unconstitutional. The feds would need to present a warrant or a judicial order.

Although Mirkarimi has a policy of not cooperating with immigration, he actually held Lopez-Sanchez in jail an extra two-and-a-half weeks after the charges were dropped. (That was to make contacts with the feds and make sure Lopez-Sanchez wasn’t wanted for any further federal time or charges.) A reporter asked Mirkarimi about this inconsistency: “What legal basis did you have for holding anyone for two-and-a-half weeks without charges? Aren’t you violating his rights?”

What did the sheriff reply?