San Francisco Mayor London Breed issued an apology Thursday for feedback she made that linked Honduran immigrants to drug dealing within the metropolis, which drew condemnation from Bay Space Latino organizations and group members.
In clips from the hourlong interview at an Oct. 5 dwell occasion with public radio station KQED-FM that started to flow into on social media this week, Breed mentioned numerous these arrested for dealing fentanyl are Honduran.
“There are sadly lots of people who come from a specific nation — come from Honduras — and a variety of the people who find themselves dealing medication occur to be of that ethnicity,” she mentioned, pushing again in opposition to criticism that regulation enforcement was racially profiling Latinos within the Tenderloin neighborhood.
“It’s nothing ‘racial profile’ about this,” Breed mentioned. “Everyone knows it. It’s the truth, it’s what you see, it’s what’s on the market.”
In her written apology, Breed mentioned that whereas making an attempt to elucidate the scenario within the Tenderloin, she “didn’t precisely and comprehensively talk about what’s an extremely complicated scenario in our Metropolis and in Central America.”
“We do have important challenges with drug dealing within the Tenderloin, and people challenges are impacting households that dwell there, together with immigrant Latino households and residents who’re dwelling in concern,” Breed mentioned. “As a proud Sanctuary Metropolis, we’ve got an obligation to supply a secure house for our immigrant households to dwell and thrive. That features ending open-air drug markets and maintain drug sellers, no matter ethnicity, accountable.”
Through the KQED occasion, Breed was requested about how officers would tackle drug use and the estimated 1,700 overdose deaths within the metropolis since 2020.
The movies circulated as Latino leaders and group members have been nonetheless coping with the shock of Los Angeles metropolis leaders’ racist feedback towards Black and Indigenous folks, which have been dropped at gentle in leaked recordings every week earlier.
“The feedback in L.A. damage folks within the Bay Space, additionally,” mentioned Lariza Dugan-Cuadra, govt director of San Francisco nonprofit Central American Useful resource Heart of Northern California. “After which to have this factor resurface with the mayor, it form of added insult to damage with how our group is feeling in California general.”
Dugan-Cuadra was among the many Latino leaders who sat down with Breed this week to push for an apology and to convey the group’s disappointment and damage.
She was involved that Breed’s feedback fed the xenophobic narrative of viewing immigrant communities as criminals, drawing parallels to former President Trump’s rhetoric. Dugan-Cuadra as a substitute requested Breed to concentrate on options and preventive measures that tackle drug dealing and root causes of migration to the U.S. — resembling poverty — fairly than ramp up prison regulation enforcement.
Breed mentioned final month that she can be “much less tolerant of all of the bulls— that has destroyed our metropolis.” She and Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins, Breed’s decide to succeed Chesa Boudin after he was recalled, have dedicated to a extra aggressive strategy of policing and prosecuting drug dealing and property crimes.
“I believe any younger particular person with migratory standing whose solely choice to survive is present in an underground financial system is a mirrored image of our society,” Dugan-Cuadra mentioned. “Younger folks ought to have extra alternatives to meet their desires, and shouldn’t be excluded and criminalized.”
Dugan-Cuadra additionally invited Breed to go to Honduras and Central America, so she will higher perceive the violent, impoverished circumstances Hondurans and others are fleeing from. She mentioned the mayor has been responsive and receptive.
Breed’s apology additionally included a pledge to help Dugan-Cuadra’s group, CARECEN SF, which is opening a bigger workplace close to the Tenderloin. The nonprofit gives sources for Latino and immigrant households, together with authorized help and illustration in immigration and prison courts.
“We’re additionally a Metropolis that believes in second possibilities and giving folks alternatives,” Breed mentioned in her apology.