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There is outrage tonight after the city of San Francisco stepped in to shield eight Honduran crack dealers from federal authorities. Now those dealers then escaped from a local halfway house. San Francisco has been has long been a so-called sanctuary city for illegal aliens. Police there refused to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The "San Francisco Chronicle" today reported eight crack dealers shielded by San Francisco walk away.

Jaxon Van Derbeken reported that story and he joins us now San Francisco.

Thanks for being with us. Excellent report. Jaxon, these offenders were put into long-term youth rehab centers that had no lockdown capacity, correct?

JAXON VAN DERBEKEN, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": That's right. They could come and go as they pleased essentially and within virtually days of arrival, in these mountains in southern California, mountain homes where small town where they come from San Francisco, they arrive, they showed up for a couple of days and walked away.

PILGRIM: This is astonishing. And in reading your report this is the second time some offenders from El Salvador escaped last year from a similar situation, didn't they?

VAN DERBEKEN: Right. I think what happens is the city briefly decided or had historically been sending these individuals back on plane flights to their native countries and federal government stopped that. And so even though the first time it failed last year, they resorted to doing it again within the last month and that's when the eight people walked away.

PILGRIM: Unbelievable story. And they basically import these drug offenders into local communities and put them in these youth rehab centers, don't they?

VAN DERBEKEN: Right. What happens is they get arrested on the streets dealing crack in San Francisco. And the local authorities have decided that rather than turn them over to the federal immigration officials, they decided to just sort of settle this issue on their own because of the sanctuary issue, they don't feel it is their place to alert the federal government to the fact that there are these youthful offenders who are not here legally, perhaps. And then they decided to just sort of disposition them case, resolve their case by sending them down south or to another country.

PILGRIM: When you were reporting this story, how has Mayor Newsom been defending this practice?

VAN DERBEKEN: Well, he says that it is a historic practice that, you know, he essentially inherited. And that he doesn't like it but he understands that the city is the city of sanctuary and he also understands that the federal government believed that these people should be deported and be sent to their country properly through legal channels. So they're trying to do this balancing act, but so far the city hasn't been able to strike that balance very effectively at this point.

PILGRIM: It sounds like a disaster at this point. What is ICE doing to force San Francisco to force them to comply with the law?

VAN DERBEKEN: When they discovered these people were arriving in Houston, en route to Honduras, they stopped them and they questioned the probation officer accompanying them. Both in December and then again in May, a separate run, if you will. And what happens was is that after that, they met with local authorities, they sent them a letter saying, don't do this or at least that's their interpretation. San Francisco believes it is a little bit more iffy than that.

But in any event, they basically said that they -- the red flag was flown, that they were alerted to the fact that this was improper in December and then they did it again in May. And now San Francisco stopped the flights and that prompted the trip down to San Bernardino County for these eight people who walked away.

PILGRIM: Jaxon Van Derbeken, an incredible story. Thanks very much for coming on the program tonight. Thank you.

VAN DERBEKEN: Thank you.