Immigrant rights advocates and public defenders have picketed outside the San Francisco Hall of Justice to ask that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins cease working with federal agencies to prosecute undocumented migrants accused of selling drugs.
San Francisco’s sanctuary city law is designed to limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, specifically U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It aims to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Amid a drug overdose crisis in the city, largely due to fentanyl, a joint force of local, state and federal law enforcement has been cracking down on arresting people accused of dealing drugs. Some of the alleged drug dealers are undocumented migrants from Honduras, a small country in Latin America with high poverty rates, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
However, immigrant rights organizations say that some accused dealers may be operating under coercion and against their will.
“We demand that the District Attorney’s Office stop colluding with the feds to keep state court juries from hearing our client stories, from hearing their truths and comply with our local and state sanctuary laws,” said Mano Raju, San Francisco’s elected public defender. “We demand that the District Attorney’s Office actually do their job to protect victims and stop offering coercive plea deals that put our clients in harm’s way with ICE, detention and deportation.”
Last month, a jury acquitted a 27-year-old man from Honduras of selling drugs in the Tenderloin. The man, whose identity is being protected, was found to be a victim of labor trafficking and forced to sell drugs.
“This young man’s defense team put forward what’s called an ‘affirmative defense’ under California law,” Raju said. “It holds that if a person is a victim of human trafficking and they commit a crime while being coerced under threat of harm, they should be found ‘not guilty’ of those crimes.”
The Free SF coalition of organizations that fight for immigrant rights gathered on the steps of the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street with public defenders to celebrate the ‘not guilty’ decision while also asking that Jenkins sign visa certifications for labor trafficking survivors so they can legally work.
“Jenkins needs to accept the fact that human trafficking is here and that her community is being victimized,” said Elizabeth Camacho, a public defender who leads the defense for human trafficking trials in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. “She needs to come out and protect them, instead of charging them with crimes, keeping them in jail and victimizing them.”
While Jenkins did not immediately provide a response to Free SF coalition’s specific demands, she said she supports San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy but is also committed to ensuring that suspected drug dealers are held accountable regardless of their immigration status.
“To successfully partner with the federal government, my team worked hard to ensure that we were 100% consistent with both the spirit and letter of our sanctuary city policies,” she said in a statement. “Cases are charged based on facts and law, regardless of the person’s immigration status.”
She said that collaboration with the federal government is needed at times because local San Francisco courts tend to show leniency for those suspected of drug dealing.
Jenkins needs to accept the fact that human trafficking is here and that her community is being victimized. … She needs to come out and protect them, instead of charging them with crimes, keeping them in jail and victimizing them.
Elizabeth Camacho, public defender
“Federal prosecution provides a critical deterrent to drug dealing because if a person goes to trial in federal court and they are convicted, they will be sentenced to time in prison,” Jenkins said. “In contrast, in San Francisco state court, the majority of judges do not treat drug dealing as a serious crime despite repeat offenses and the drug dealers therefore do not fear incarceration or any significant consequence.”
The Free SF coalition and public defenders want undocumented immigrants accused of dealing drugs in San Francisco to be given due process in case they are victims of human trafficking.
“Federal agencies have been showing up over the past year at this courthouse to arrest our clients and put our clients on a fast track to deportation, depriving them of due process,” Raju said.
Several members of the jury who acquitted the 27-year-old Honduran national showed up at Tuesday’s rally to support him and their decision. They agreed that the man was trafficked by cartels to sell drugs in the Tenderloin.
“My ‘not guilty’ vote was based on a feeling developed through the course of the trial … that ‘a job’ in which your bosses carry guns and have threatened to kill your family is not one you can easily quit,” said juror Al McKee. “I am comfortable that our verdict achieves justice for the client, who I firmly believe was a victim.”
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