One has to hand it to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for chutzpah.

At the same time that San Francisco was launching an advertising campaign to invite illegal aliens to take advantage of tax-supported services, the city was over-billing the federal government for prosecutions against illegal immigrants who violate anti-drug and anti-gang laws.

Last week, the mayor proudly announced that San Francisco was spending $83,000 to advertise the city’s status as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. The city will distribute brochures at police stations and hospitals informing illegal immigrants that they can receive city services regardless of their residency status.

“We’re inviting people to come out of the shadows and take advantage of services,” said Newsom.

Coming out of the shadows as well is the demand by federal auditors that San Francisco repay the federal government for $5.4 million the city received in grants from 2004 through 2006 from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. The audit found that the $3.7 million San Francisco got from the program in 2006 was the largest awarded to any county in four states bordering Mexico. The program disbursed smaller grants to counties that are much closer to the border, including San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.

The audit made clear that San Francisco’s grant requests were inflated. The program requires grant recipients to keep three years of records on file to demonstrate that they were handling prosecutions against illegal immigrants referred to them by federal authorities. San Francisco failed to keep such records.

This means that Mayor Newsom has been having it both ways. The funds San Francisco received were supposed to defray the costs of jailing criminal suspects in border-related crime. Yet the city has styled itself as a Mecca for immigration scofflaws.

How long did he think he was going to get away with it?
It is likely that Newsom, a Democrat, will run for governor in two years. Revelations concerning his double-dealing on immigration matters ought to make that a non-starter.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom gestures as he addresses the Sacramento
Press Club in Sacramento, March 25, 2008. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)