Harris said she first learned that illegal immigrants were training for jobs in Back on Track when Izaguirre, then 20, was arrested for the Kiefer assault and other crimes on a purse-snatching spree.
Izaguirre had been selected for the program after two arrests within eight months; an alleged purse-snatching preceded his arrest for selling cocaine. Because completion leads to the expunging of a felony conviction, the program has a waiting list of potential entrants. Selections are made solely by the district attorney's office.
It was a mistake, Harris said, to let illegal immigrants into the program, a "flaw in the design."
"I believe we fixed it," Harris said in an interview at her office in San Francisco. "So moving forward, it is about making sure that no one enters Back on Track if they cannot hold legal employment."
Exactly how many illegal immigrants have been included since the program began four years ago is not publicly known.
Harris said that after Izaguirre's arrest she never asked -- and has never learned -- how many illegal immigrants were in the program. Sharon Woo and Sharon Owsley, the prosecutors who oversee the program, said they too never asked and have never learned the number.
But after the interviews, Harris spokeswoman Erica Derryck said the D.A.'s office had in fact "assessed who would not have been able to meet" the new requirement for legal papers to obtain a job.
"We deliberated on how best to handle this group, given that they entered the program under different criteria," Derryck said -- in other words, as illegal immigrants.
The San Francisco chapter of Goodwill Industries International handles day-to-day oversight of Back on Track participants for the D.A.'s office. Carlos Serrano-Quan, a Goodwill supervisor, said it appeared that fewer than a dozen illegal immigrants had been in the program.
Whatever the number, Harris said that once she realized that illegal immigrants were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records cleared. It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce federal immigration laws.
"My issue was more, what are we going to do to prevent this from happening in the future?" she said.
Some of the illegal immigrants were allowed to graduate before finishing an entire 12 months of the program, as normally required, according to the D.A.'s spokeswoman.
