I suspect you're just trading on the multiple meanings of "sanctuary" to inject your political views into this conversation. The modern practice bears only superficial similarities with the medieval practice.
Yes, people use the word "sanctuary" to describe the practice explained in the article, and also to describe modern U.S. localities' policies of selectively enforcing federal immigration laws. (I say "selectively" because sanctuary cities will typically hand over known criminals for deportation.) But the modern practice, based in the differing jurisdictions and legal obligations of various levels of government in the U.S. federal system, does not have a lot to do with medieval sanctuary laws. Medieval sanctuary practices, as described in the article, largely took the place of (or served as) criminal punishment, at every level of government, due to an interesting commingling of church and secular law to which there is little analog in the U.S. Sanctuary cities also, of course, only decline to enforce immigration laws, not other criminal laws as was the case in medieval England.
And while I suppose it is slightly interesting to ponder the difference, I'm not sure this slight relevance justifies injecting this flame-war inducing topic (especially in such glib terms as "a criminal was given 'sanctuary' in San Francisco where he proceeded to randomly murder a tourist taking a stroll").