Danielle Bologna Enters Witness Protection as Edwin Ramos Trial Nears

Edwin Ramos

​Immigrant rights activists remember 2008 as the year that San Francisco turned its back on its sanctuary city status. Then-Mayor Gavin Newsom reversed the city's long-standing policy of shielding juvenile undocumented immigrants from deportation as the city became the target of anti-immigrant forces across the country. At the center of the storm was the horrific slaying of an innocent father and his two sons in the Excelsior District, and the primary suspect who had benefited from the city's lenient policies toward teenage immigrant criminals.

The victim's mother and wife, Danielle Bologna, became a hawk against sanctuary cities -- gobbled up by conservatives as a force to advance their anti-immigration cause.There's no more credible spokesperson than a heartbroken widow, right?

She sued the city for harboring criminal aliens -- unsuccessfully. She railed against then-District Attorney Kamala Harris for failing to seek the death penalty for the suspected killer, Edwin Ramos. But recently, Bologna has gone silent, having entered witness protection as Ramos' trial nears.

Now she's back.

This month's issue of San Francisco Magazine profiles Bologna, who spoke to the article's editor, Nina Martin, for months despite the fact that the District Attorney's Office warned against doing so.

The piece examines Bologna's ordeal and the city's liberal establishment's uneasy relationship with her; It humanizes the woman many associate with only with angry screeds on Fox News -- including her working class, family-centric life in the Excelsior District; her love of the Giants and acrylic nails; and her love life with departed husband, Tony.

Surprising details outlined how Bologna remains an unlikely foe of immigrants: Her father illegally immigrated from Mexico, and benefited from the immigrant amnesty of the 1980s; her mother's family fled to the U.S. from Nicaragua during the country's civil war.

Bologna just didn't think criminals should be able to stay in the country. "She wasn't political.She was just a mother who lost her children," a source tells the magazine.

The reporter also reveals to Bologna new details that emerged about Ramos in the federal trial against MS-13 -- including the fact that federal agents had long known about him and his gang-related activities, yet failed to arrest or deport him.

Check out the full article.

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