Illegal teen rearrested - faces 2nd deportation
Jaxon Van Derbeken

Tuesday, May 5, 2009



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A Honduran teenager deported last year under San Francisco's new policy of turning over juvenile drug offenders to U.S. immigration authorities has been rearrested for dealing drugs in the city and is likely to be deported again, authorities say.

The case of the 15-year-old boy demonstrates the complexities of the problem that San Francisco officials face in handling an influx of young Honduran immigrants who deal crack cocaine on the city's streets but have no local ties.

The youth, referred to as Francisco G. because he is a juvenile, was first arrested selling crack in the Tenderloin in July, when he was 14. He told his defense attorneys a harrowing story of how he wound up in the city after his mother left him on his own in Honduras, and Juvenile Court Commissioner Abby Abinanti concluded that he should be handled within the social welfare system, not as a criminal offender.

City officials, however, surrendered him to immigration officials rather than release him. When federal authorities took custody of him, they discovered 50 bindles of crack cocaine sewn into his clothes, which Juvenile Hall officials had put in storage after he was arrested.

Francisco G. was deported late last year, but it didn't take him long to return.

According to police reports, he was arrested March 28 with two adults dealing crack at Market and Larkin streets near UN Plaza. On April 21, he went before Abinanti, who sentenced him to a year in custody with the understanding that he would probably be deported, according to authorities familiar with the case.

That sentence was later modified by the court, and juvenile probation officials surrendered the boy to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Majority illegal Hondurans

As an undocumented immigrant and alleged drug dealer, Francisco G. is far from alone in San Francisco. A recent city report showed that from January 2005 through this past February, 252 undocumented youths had cases in the juvenile probation system, nearly 80 percent of whom were from Honduras. Many were drug offenders.

Advocates for youths in the juvenile courts stress that many of the immigrant teenagers accused of drug dealing are victims of abuse, abandonment or human trafficking, and should not be treated like hardened criminals.

They say the youths should be allowed to make a case for asylum rather than being turned over for deportation. They also say that only youths who have already had their cases adjudicated in juvenile court should be surrendered to federal authorities.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, however, announced a policy change last year after a series of articles in The Chronicle revealed that the city was paying for flights home and group-home placements for illegal immigrant youths caught dealing drugs rather than turning them over for deportation.

The Newsom administration made it clear that the city's sanctuary policy for illegal immigrants did not extend to juveniles accused of crimes, and began surrendering such youths to federal authorities.

The case of Francisco G. "shows that even when juvenile suspects are referred to ICE, it doesn't mean that they will never come back and reoffend," said mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard.

Reform needed
"This shows that we need serious immigration reform on the federal level - local governments bear the brunt of a failed immigration policy," Ballard said. "We are doing everything we can to keep criminals away and off our streets, but we can't do it alone."

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the federal immigration service, confirmed that deportation proceedings were under way for Francisco G. but declined further comment.

The boy's attorney, Lisa Katz of the public defender's office, provided Abinanti last year with a statement on behalf of her client. She said he had never known his father and had been left behind in Honduras at age 13 when his mother moved to Spain.

He had a job at a bakery for $3.70 a week and lived on that, along with money his mother sent back from Spain, but left for the United States to escape harassment by Honduran gangs, Katz said.

The boy rode freight trains and walked through the desert at night, then spent five days in a safe house run by smugglers until a friend could provide the $2,500 needed to get him to Los Angeles, Katz said.

Unable to find work there, he came to San Francisco, but could not keep a job as a roofer because of his age and small stature, Katz said.

He turned to drug dealing after 15 days without work, she told Abinanti, and was arrested on July 17, 2008.

"Francisco is abandoned and wishes to stay in the United States in foster care," Katz told the court in a motion.

Katz declined to comment Monday, saying any media coverage of Francisco G.'s case breaches confidentiality rules that apply to juvenile proceedings.


E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.



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