And then there were none - another illegal immigrant offender flees

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 22, 2008


Allen A. Nance, assistant chief probation officer, left, ...
S.F. Shielding Immigrants

Last juvenile illegal immigrant drug offender escapes (7/22)

Slaying suspect once found sanctuary in S.F. (7/20)

3 more juvenile migrant drug dealers escape (7/19)

Alleged crack dealer arrested (7/04)

Officials: Expect surge of detainees at juvie hall (7/04)

Editorial: No sanctuary for drug dealers (7/03)

Policy on convicted felons changes (7/02)

Newsom: Court has final say (7/02)

8 crack dealers in S.F. walk away (7/01)

Probe into migrant- offender protection (6/29)

(07-22) 22:28 PDT San Francisco -- The last illegal immigrant juvenile offender who had been in a $7,000-a-month group home as part of San Francisco's now-abandoned effort to shield young immigrants from deportation has bolted, authorities said today.

The youth walked away from the unlocked center in Atascadero (San Luis Obispo County) on Monday, bringing to 12 the number of illegal immigrant offenders in the past month who have fled from youth homes hundreds of miles from the city.

Ten of the 12, all of them from Honduras and all detained for dealing drugs, are still at large, including the youth who disappeared early Monday.

The juveniles were among the offenders San Francisco juvenile probation officials had decided not to refer to federal authorities for possible deportation proceedings. The city flew several such youths to their native countries without telling the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and when federal officials objected to the flights, city officials started sending the offenders to group homes outside San Francisco. City taxpayers picked up the $7,000 monthly tab for each juvenile.

Mayor Gavin Newsom renounced the flights and the city abandoned the group home approach after The Chronicle reported that eight juvenile drug dealers had walked away from group homes in San Bernardino County in June. Newsom also said the city would start turning over illegal immigrant youths caught committing felonies to ICE, a reversal of the city's long-standing policy of shielding them from deportation.

The mayor's new policy against flights and group home placement, however, did not mean the city would surrender youths who had already been placed in shelters for possible deportation, authorities said.

Then, last week, authorities acknowledged that three more youths the city had put in unlocked group homes in Visalia had also walked away - one in June and two after the youths got a phone call from an unidentified person July 17.

Newsom declared that the last juvenile offender still in a group home outside the city - the youth in Atascadero - would be brought back for resentencing in San Francisco. "Enough is enough," the mayor said Friday.

The youth, however, remained in the unidentified group home in Atascadero over the weekend while juvenile probation officials tried to arrange a court hearing for his resentencing. Sunday night, the boy got a call - officials do not know from whom - and on Monday morning, he walked away.

Authorities said the assumption is that the phone calls to the youths in Atascadero and Visalia were from tipsters telling them they were likely to be brought back to San Francisco juvenile hall. The Chronicle and other media reported Saturday that the city planned to bring the boy back from Atascadero.

"When these juveniles learned they would be reported to ICE, they flew the coop," said Nathan Ballard, spokesman for Newsom. "It is a consequence of the mayor's change in policy. Now we are going to have to go out and arrest them all over again."

But authorities have no way of tracing the calls, said William Siffermann, head of the city's Juvenile Probation Department, which had recommended that the youths be put in the group homes.

In any event, Siffermann said, "there will no more group homes in future."

Siffermann said federal authorities had questioned whether shunting youths out of the city and away from immigration authorities violated U.S. law against aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.

Juvenile probation officials' policy of flying illegal immigrants home and then putting them in centers elsewhere was based in part on their desire to minimize the inmate population at juvenile hall. Siffermann did not say how the city would handle felony offenders now, other than to say they would be dealt with on "a case-by-case basis."

But he said, "Recognizing all this attention as well as the definitive flight risk that exists here, this is something we will take into consideration in any future placement."

The story till now

How San Francisco's policy of shielding illegal immigrant juveniles who commit felonies from possible deportation has fallen apart.

-- December - Federal authorities at the Houston airport question a San Francisco juvenile probation officer on a stopover on a flight to Tegucigalpa with two Honduran juvenile drug dealers. Officials later meet with San Francisco officials and raise questions about whether such flights are illegal.

-- May - A second juvenile probation officer on a flight to Tegucigalpa with juvenile offenders is stopped by federal authorities in Houston, who detain him for several hours. San Francisco halts such flights and starts sending some illegal immigrant offenders to youth homes outside the city.

-- June - Eight Honduran juvenile drug dealers sent to group homes in San Bernardino County escape.

-- July - Mayor Gavin Newsom says group-home referrals will stop and that the city will start turning over such offenders to immigration authorities. Later in the month, two illegal immigrant drug dealers escape from group homes in Visalia and a third runs away from one in San Luis Obispo County. Officials discover that a fourth escaped the previous month in Visalia.

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