San Mateo County is a verdant tree-filled land that greatly resembles something from a Hobbit movie. It is a land where the 2SLGBTQIA+ can breathe free. The county includes the major North South 101 and 280 freeways as well as the airport serving San Francisco and the many tracks of the San Francisco Bay Area Transit known as BART.
A curious feature of the county is its large Tongan community of nearly 15,000.
San Mateo County is a chokepoint for immigrants trying to migrate to San Francisco. By including San Mateo County in the Sanctuary we include the gateway from the South, the San Francisco Airport (SFO) and the BART trains carrying hundreds of thousands of people each week day.
The county includes East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. While the name Menlo Park might sound familiar, it is not the Menlo Park of Thomas Edison. The Menlo Park of Thomas Edison was named after this Menlo Park in California.