Reporter Challenged in SF Sanctuary Ordinance Stories

Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle has published several articles criticizing San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance because of a shooting that took place purportedly by an undocumented immigrant who benefited from the policy. Carlos Villarreal and Angela Chan have written a challenge to the accuracy of the Chronicles report:
Carelessly referencing vague sources and leading with off the cuff remarks by law enforcement, the San Francisco Chronicle and reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken have published a series of damaging articles about juvenile immigrant offenders and the city’s sanctuary ordinance. The implication in the series of stories that began to appear on June 29, is that violent felons and crack dealers are taking advantage of the City’s Sanctuary Ordinance and specifically a policy at the Juvenile Probation Department that has shielded felons, according to the Chronicle spin, from deportation at taxpayers’ expense. A few major facts rarely tempered this incitement of reactionaries: the juvenile court system is very different from the adult criminal courts, the Sanctuary Ordinance never dictated the various tactics used by the Juvenile Probation Department, and the Sanctuary Ordinance doesn’t cause violence. To the contrary, the ordinance encourages people to communicate with law enforcement and other government agencies regardless of immigration status.
Instead, the reporting took the lead from the former head of the SFPD narcotics unit, Captain Tim Hettrich and the federal prosecutor in charge of the San Francisco area, Joseph Russoniello. While providing little hard data but plenty of hyperbole, these two did get multiple quotes and section headings. Their comments also framed the early stories on this subject for the Chronicle.

Hettrich was quoted in a June 29 article as saying, “Some of them have been arrested four or five times,” and “that is one of the big problems with being a sanctuary.” Who “some of them” are was not clear, neither was the number of “them” who had been arrested multiple times or for what. The Chronicle rarely referred to “them” as children or youth, but more often, as “crack dealers” or “illegal immigrant drug dealers,” i.e., lacking human worth or any reason for sympathy.

The tax-payer-funded Russoniello was “flabbergasted that the taxpayers’ money was being spent for the purposes of ferrying detainees home.” What was actually best for taxpayers was not seriously considered, since millions of tax dollars go each year to federal prosecutors like Russoniello, his staff, the federal courts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), border patrol agents, and incarceration.

The articles themselves may have prompted the youth to flee the group homes, as the Chronicle built three separate stories almost entirely on the young immigrants walking away from the homes. First there was a story about “8 crack dealers” who left; then in another story 3 more left a home in a different county; finally the last one to leave warranted a 3rd story. Some reportedly received calls ahead of time, perhaps warning them that they might soon be subject to deportation. The Chronicle’s role in creating that circumstance was never explored. Moreover, the Chronicle also failed to look into the percentage of undocumented youth that ran away from group homes prior to the hysteria started by the paper itself.

Law enforcement innuendo and vague sources were commonplace in the series of articles. Referring to the flights home, Hettrich was quoted saying, “They probably get the round trip and the next day, they will be right back here. [emphasis added]” Paraphrasing Russoniello, Van Derbeken wrote, “drug dealers are being sent here as part of an effort that takes advantage of San Francisco’s leniency.” Again, without any real data or even specific anecdotal evidence, the message is pounded into the readers’ heads: drug dealers are taking advantage of our liberal policies.

When the facts seemed more solid the sources suddenly became more illusory. “Police” were cited as saying “many of the Hondurans – some of whom they believe are actually adults – live communally in other local cities at the behest of drug lords, who finance their travel here and threaten to kill their families if they cooperate with law enforcement.”

Such a detailed account is crying out for a more specific source, or at least a statement about why the source is kept anonymous. Was Van Derbeken just talking to officers who were passing on rumors, or were there consistent statements taken from a number of the juveniles? It certainly adds to the underlying story of criminals taking advantage of San Francisco liberalism, but a reporter actually following the evidence trail might find it isn’t true at all. Click here for the rest of the piece.

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