San Francisco’s fentanyl deportations show rare unity with Donald Trump

By Eliyahu Kamisher | Bloomberg

Liberal San Francisco is eyeing at least one patch of common ground with President-elect Donald Trump.

Top officials in the city — long a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants — have embraced a Biden-era crackdown on fentanyl dealers that has sent scores of migrants to deportation proceedings since last year. Now the incoming mayor and other local leaders say they’re open to maintaining the program under Trump as they look to tackle the city’s drug markets.

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“Believe it or not there may be some things that we agree on here,” Matt Dorsey, a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, said of the incoming administration. “Fentanyl dealing and fentanyl addiction may be an area where there is some agreement.”

The deportations have sparked outrage from immigrant-rights advocates who say local law enforcement is working with federal authorities to circumvent the city’s sanctuary policy. While targeting convicted drug dealers is far more limited than the mass deportations that Trump has proposed — and that San Francisco is likely to resist — the actions show how a resurgent tough-on-crime tone in Democratic strongholds is opening up rare chances for agreement with the GOP president.

A similar recalibration is percolating around the country as cities prepare to navigate Trump’s upcoming second term. In New York, Mayor Eric Adams has said he’s open to deporting immigrants accused of crimes. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has said that undocumented “violent criminals” should be deported.

It’s unclear if Trump, who is expected to appoint a new US attorney for Northern California, will continue the cooperation with San Francisco’s district attorney’s office. But the president-elect’s campaign focus on tackling fentanyl aligns with the city’s crackdown.

“President Trump will lever every power necessary to secure the border and stop deadly drugs from illegally entering our country,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team.

That sets up a delicate balancing act for local officials in San Francisco. Driven by fentanyl, overdoses killed 810 people in the city last year, although drug deaths have fallen sharply in recent months.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement that she’s willing to continue working with federal authorities to ensure “dignified, safe neighborhoods that are not held hostage by unrepentant drug traffickers” although she added any cooperation with Trump remains uncertain and would not violate the city’s sanctuary protections.

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Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie echoed that sentiment, saying US prosecutors “have that right” to continue the program, which has led to around 120 convictions and dozens of additional charges since its inception.

“They deport them,” he said in an interview. “That has gone on for the last year and they have that right. And if they continue to do that, they have that right.”

Lurie added that he supports the city’s sanctuary policies, which are backed by state ordinances. The measures bar local law enforcement from working with immigration authorities in most cases.

Plenty of drug dealers are US citizens, and San Francisco has been touting its broader efforts to crack down on them, too. But the fentanyl deportations typically involve young Honduran migrants who are arrested by local police and then charged by US prosecutors.

Once in federal court, most defendants accept plea deals under a program called “Fast Track,” which results in one-day prison sentences that lead to the person being handed over to immigration authorities.

Critics argue that the system pressures accused migrants into plea deals and glosses over issues like human trafficking that force some migrants into drug dealing. A coalition of 32 advocacy organizations said in a November letter that the crackdown “singles out and scapegoats the immigrant community” for the fentanyl crisis.

“The District Attorney’s ongoing collusion with the federal government to funnel people into immigration detention and deportation is especially unconscionable in the face of threats of mass deportation and openly racist and xenophobic targeting of immigrants by President-elect Trump,” said Angela Chan, an assistant chief attorney in the San Francisco public defender’s office.

Among the recent cases is a Honduran man who crouched behind a wall with an undercover police officer and sold him $40 in fentanyl, according to a criminal complaint. The 21-year-old came to the US for the first time in recent months and “is not a sophisticated drug dealer,” his public defender said in a court document.

The federal crackdown also ensnared a 9-months-pregnant woman who faced a surprise arrest in October when she appeared for a local court hearing on drug-sale charges. The woman was held overnight before being released, the public defender’s office said.

In another case, a San Francisco jury in September acquitted a Honduran man accused of drug dealing after finding he had been coerced into selling narcotics.

At the political level, the Board of Supervisors overwhelmingly rejected an effort by Dorsey in 2023 to amend the city’s sanctuary policy to permit the deportation of convicted fentanyl dealers.

While Dorsey has been among the most vocal advocates for deporting the city’s convicted drug dealers, his common ground with Trump is unlikely to extend much further. Dorsey’s boyfriend is a Brazilian immigrant with a pending asylum case, and he’s been clear that most migrants should be shielded from Trump’s broader deportation campaign.

“It’s going to be a tightrope to walk for the new mayor,” said Dorsey. “It’s going to be a tightrope for all of us on the Board of Supervisors.”

–With assistance from Marie Monteleone.

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