Another Honduran drug dealer, sent for ‘fast track’ deportation, arrested again in San Francisco
Another Honduran drug dealer convicted and sent for deportation under federal prosecutors’ ailing ‘fast track’ program, will return to court today after being arrested again in San Francisco.
Anderson Medina was caught in April 2025 two blocks from the site of a 2023 drug arrest which led to the initiation of federal proceedings.
Since April he has been before judges at San Francisco’s Hall of Justice because of an open bench warrant from a 2023 state drugs case. He was kept in custody until last Wednesday when he was transferred to federal custody resulting in today’s scheduled appearance in U.S. District Court.
He is due to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson.
In August 2023 Medina, wearing Oakland A’s gear, was spied by police making hand-to-hand drug sales in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. He and an accomplice were together found with more than 350g of fentanyl.
He was dealt with under a then-nascent scheme designed by federal prosecutors to encourage defendants to rapidly plead guilty and be deported in order to avoid punitive sentences in district court. He was sent for deportation 27 days after his arrest.
“This disposition,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Joseph Tartakovsky at the time, “results in a drug trafficking conviction within weeks of arrest (not months or years), immediate separation of the defendant from the Tenderloin and prevention of the defendant from returning to the Tenderloin.”
This optimistic appraisal was belied by how events ultimately unfolded.
Medina’s return to court, comes on the heels of last week’s reappearance of another deported Honduran, is a further reverse for federal prosecutors and local U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian.
Since his appointment Missakian has stayed silent on whether his office will continue with the faltering fast track scheme, which is not taken seriously by the dealers, or whether he intends to ramp up the consequences for illegal alien narcotics traffickers.
In contrast with his hard-charging Southern California counterpart, Bill Essayli, Missakian has favored a below-the-radar approach since his installation, leaving open to question his willingness and ability to implement Department of Justice law enforcement priorities in Northern California.
Medina faces an accusation that he violated the terms of his federal probation.
The case continues.
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