Fast-track deportation scheme fails again as drug dealer returns to San Francisco, resumes dealing drugs
A Honduran drug trafficker dealt with under federal prosecutors’ ‘fast track’ deportation scheme was sentenced to 30 months today at San Francisco’s federal courthouse – having promptly returned to the city and resumed dealing.
Anderson Medina, 22, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who took prosecutors to task for their recommendation that Medina be given 60 months, pointing out that the average sentence for defendants in his position was 20 months.
“When I saw this recommendation from the United States, I thought ‘this guy must be way worse than everybody else’ – way worse,” said Breyer.
“Three times? I don’t see it.”
“I’m not saying it’s fine that he came back to the U.S. and is dealing with fentanyl, that’s a horrible thing. A horrible thing. But he’s not the only one who’s doing it.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Henderson had asked the court to impose a 42-month sentence for the new charges and an 18-month term for the probation violation.
“Given the severity of this crisis and Medina’s repeated role in it, his conduct no longer warrants the lenience previously extended by this court,” she wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Breyer said the government was trying to punish Medina multiple times for the same crimes. But he was reluctant to give him more of a break because, he said, it might prompt the U.S. Attorney’s office to jettison the fast track program entirely which he described as “humane”.
Medina was arrested in April 2025 by SFPD officers who found him with illegal narcotics packaged for sale, cash and an open warrant.
He was last arrested in August 2023 when, wearing Oakland A’s gear, he was seen making hand-to-hand drug sales in the SOMA district. He and an accomplice were found with more than 350g of fentanyl. He was given a sentence of 27 days and sent for removal.
He earlier pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and methamphetamine and illegal reentry, and admitted violating his probation terms.
This morning Breyer sentenced him to 20 months on the three new charges and 10 months for his probation violation, to run consecutively.
“I would like to apologize for the wrong decision I made,” said Medina through a Spanish interpreter. “I promise not to make another decision that will cause more problems than I already have.”
Defense attorney Karthik Raju asked for a time-served 15-month sentence, stressing that his client had experienced a deprived and violent upbringing.
The court was told that while awaiting deportation after his 2023 conviction, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office tried to swing him a ‘T Visa’ – intended for victims of human trafficking rather than drug traffickers. That office has since refused to represent defendants at the city’s Hall of Justice, claiming to be cash strapped.
Medina has a wife and a three-year-old child who live in Oakland plus other relatives in Texas.
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