Tenderloin drug dealer, deported to Honduras, arrested again in U.S.

A Tenderloin drug dealer deported to Honduras in October 2023 has become the first recent deportee to be arrested again in the U.S.

Franklin Hernandez-Cruz was detained in Mesa, AZ last month per court records and is awaiting sentencing for ‘reentry of a removed alien’. His return lends credence to the reluctance of a San Francisco federal judge immediately to deport dealers without a substantial prison term (“They go to Honduras and they come back”).

Hernandez-Cruz was arrested by SFPD in August 2023. During a three minute fight with officers he threw bags of suspected fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and cash to the ground which were then stolen by bystanders. He was sentenced to a ‘time served’ term and deported.

Per the terms of a plea agreement in federal court in Arizona it appears that Hernandez-Cruz will serve a term of five or six months’ imprisonment.

He has agreed not to contest removal.