The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and FREE SF, an immigrant rights coalition, held a press conference on Tuesday morning to demand that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins stop colluding with the federal government to arrest immigrants accused of drug crimes in order to have them deported.
In August, the public defender’s office won the acquittal of a man accused of selling drugs in the Tenderloin, the first successful human trafficking defense regarding a drug-related case in California, according to the office. The Honduran immigrant said he was a victim of human trafficking and had been forced into drug-dealing. A jury agreed, striking down the charges against him.
Since November, the city has been working with the state and federal governments in a concerted effort to charge fentanyl dealers, like the man acquitted last month. Federal charges generally carry harsher penalties, and often trigger deportation proceedings for undocumented offenders.
This approach has allowed the district attorney’s office to bypass judicial proceedings and fast-track deportations by making so-called “jump-out arrests,” according to Angela Chan, the assistant chief attorney at the public defender’s office.
Federal agents “will surprise our clients in the [courtroom] hallways and arrest them prior to their hearing,” said Chan. When that happens, the clients are taken into federal custody and are unable to attend their own hearings.
“There is no due process being given to this individual. It is about putting that person on a fast track to deportation,” said Chan. “That’s the practice that we’re seeing.”
“This tactic has resulted in the double victimization of some of our immigrant clients who’ve been arrested for drug-related offenses when they, themselves, are the victims of a form of human trafficking called labor trafficking,” added Public Defender Mano Raju.
Raju asked the DA’s office to sign off on immigration documents for the man acquitted in August so that he can obtain authorization to work in the United States, and that the city comply with its own sanctuary laws as well as California sanctuary laws. The city’s Sanctuary Ordinance prohibits the use of tax dollars in assisting federal deportation efforts.
“We demand that the district attorney’s office take seriously labor trafficking claims, and that they treat labor trafficking survivors the same way they’ve evolved to treat sex trafficking survivors,” said Raju. “We demand that the district attorney’s office actually do their job to protect victims, and stop offering coercive plea deals that are putting our clients in harm’s way with ICE detention and deportation.”
“I am committed to closing open-air drug markets and ensuring that suspected and admitted drug dealers are held accountable and face consequences,” Jenkins wrote in a statement. “I support and respect our Sanctuary City policy. In my effort to protect all of our residents, especially immigrant communities, from the scourges of the drug trade, I have fostered and welcomed collaboration with all levels of government to ensure that they can live in dignified, safe neighborhoods, that are not held hostage by unrepentant drug traffickers.”
In the case of offenders who claim to be victims of human trafficking, the public defender’s office can seek other resolutions instead of going to trial; namely, diversion programs, Chan explained. But under District Attorney Jenkins’ administration, that alternative has rarely been granted. “So we’ve had to go to trial,” said Chan.
California Penal Code §236.23 provides an affirmative defense to someone who is arrested and accused of committing a crime if they were coerced to commit the offense as a direct result of being a human trafficking victim.
The August case cited during the press conference is one of seven trials in which the public defender’s office has sought an affirmative defense based on that state law, but it is the first case which has resulted in a full acquittal.
The DA has won guilty verdicts on two of those cases, and four others have resulted in hung juries. Three of those defendants have had their charges dismissed, and the fourth is in a diversion program.
The acquitted defendant, whose identity remains concealed, is a young man from Honduras. He was working in construction, earning the equivalent of $5 a day, when he was coerced north into the United States on a cargo train, the infamous “La Bestia,” and eventually forced to sell drugs, explained the lead attorney on the case, Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Natividad.
He was acquitted last month following a jury trial. “We appreciate our jurors, who made it clear to the district attorney that our client is a human being that needs to be recognized as a vulnerable person,” said Natividad.
Natividad ended her speech with a recorded statement from the victim in Spanish, which she later translated. “I hope that after today, the San Francisco prosecutor listens to my plea and signs the papers so I can get a visa and finally be free and find a way to work, to live freely and to fulfill the dream of helping my family.”
“that our client is a human being that needs to be recognized as a vulnerable person”.
As if all this happens in a vacuum, ignoring all the people laying draped across the sidewalk or in Colma. You got to be in awe about this master class in pathological compartmentalization.
The good news perhaps: Now that Hondos who are forced into dealing can get an out like this, they must stop dealing immediately, and report themselves as victims of human trafficking. Otherwise, throw the book at them when caught on the street.
“… signs the papers so I can get a visa and finally be free and find a way to work, to live freely and to fulfill the dream of helping my family.”
Absolutely not. Let’s look back in history, the Nuremberg trials, where we did not accept the “I only followed orders” narrative either. Sure, you’re in a tough spot, as an Auschwitz guard or dealing Fent in the Tenderloin. But there’s always THE RIGHT THING TO DO, too.
Now do Israel.
Four hung juries and one acquittal is clear evidence that San Franciscans deserve the present level of crime.
You’re right, San Franciscans deserve the present LOW level of crime.
It’s not as low as Breed’s hand-picked nunces would have you believe, weeks before an election. There is no firewalled oversight.
Does the county public defender’s office even have jurisdiction and standing for federal cases?
How have we regressed to a supply-side drug war approach that has never worked and never will? If there’s money to be made by selling drugs, someone is always going to do it, regardless of the penalties. If we’re serious about ending drug use, we need to eliminate the demand.
What a convenient get out of jail free card. Any immigrant dealer can say they were trafficked and coerced into performing their murderous task, claims that are largely unfalsifiable.
As a San Francisco resident who does not support crime and criminals, I applaud the DA for prosecuting and helping to deport drug dealers.
I do not understand why anyone in the city would not agree with this. Go spend some time downtown at night.
The issue is whether they are given due process for the crime of drug dealing in SF, as anyone would be entitled to under our laws, or whether Breed’s corrupt and morally-fungible DA (whose chief of staff works 2 jobs at the same time on SF’s dime, amazingly!) is circumventing the actual legal process (in violation of SF city charter and at least 1 SF law) to boost her clearance statistics for another naive-electoral production number, with an election obviously looming.
Even if you agree with doing that, one assumes you also still want rule of law as a premise to underpin everything we decide to do with state powers and taxpayer money, right? Circumventing the law that’s inconvenient or political inexpedient, that’s not legitimate. Even if you like it this time, you don’t want that precedent.
Oh no! Those poor drug dealers
Oh puh-leeze!
perhaps the unnamed defendants who faced criminal charges would have been more successful had they been trafficked for sex crimes as this is more helpful to the political narratives and aspirations of our current district attorney.
it would better if ML had coverage of the alternative candidate for district attorney, Ryan Kohjasteh so voters realize they do have a choice.