White Supremacist Group Identity Evropa Posts ‘Danger Sanctuary City’ Sign Near San Francisco

A sign reading “Danger Sanctuary City Ahead,” was hung on a highway heading into San Francisco by white supremacist group Identity Evropa early Sunday morning. The sign was removed Sunday by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

Bob Haus, a spokesperson for the department, told International Business Times the sign was removed within 30 minutes of the incident being reported to Caltrans. Trespassing would have to be involved in order to place the sign Haus said.

“They put it there illegally,” said Haus. “We don’t really allow posters.”

A Twitter account identifying as Identity Evropa posted pictures of the sign hung above the I80 tunnel on Yerba Buena Island.

“Public Service Announcement from Identity Evropa: San Francisco is a dangerous sanctuary city where the law does not apply to illegal invaders. Enter at your own risk!” read the tweet.

The group was founded in 2016 by Nathan Damigo, 31, while a student at California State University, Stanislaus. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit civil rights organization has labeled Identity Evropa a hate group. Damigo is a former Marine and was captured on video punching a woman at a violent rally in Berkley, California, last year.

The group bills itself as a “generation of awakened Europeans who have discovered that we are part of the great peoples, history, and civilization that flowed from the European continent.” The group is against multiculturalism and believes people of different races should be separated.

The group has a penchant for guerrilla-style advertising techniques often posting signs with Greco-Roman themes and slogans like “Let’s Become Great Again” and “Protect Your Heritage.”

The group has touted other instances of posting signage above highways and streets on their website. In December, they dropped a banner from a bridge at Georgia Tech in Atlanta reading “America First, End Immigration,” and in November posted a sign from an overpass in Oklahoma City reading Sen. [James] Lankford promotes lawlessness. Amnesty is Anti-American.” Lankford, a Republican, sponsored a bill seeking protections for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program, created by former president Barack Obama, protected immigrants with no legal status brought to the U.S. as children from being deported.

San Francisco became a lightning rod for the Trump administration after an immigrant without legal status there was acquitted of the murder of Kate Steinle in November of last year. The immigrant had been deported from the U.S. several times. The man’s lawyer argued that a gun he was holding fired errantly and a bullet ricocheted off the ground and killed Steinle. A juror called the incident a “freak accident.”

“He was free to harm an innocent American because our leaders refuse to protect our border and because San Francisco is a sanctuary city,” said Trump in a December video address after the trial ended.

“Sanctuary city” isn’t a legal term, but represents an attitude of a city’s leadership to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Trump who has campaigned to limit immigration has railed against so-called sanctuary cities.

Identity Evropa did not respond to IBT’s request for comment.