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San Francisco D.A.'s program trained illegal immigrants for jobs they couldn't legally hold

June 22, 2009|Michael Finnegan

"The immigration issue, as it relates to the Izaguirre case, obviously is a huge kind of pimple on the face of this program," Harris acknowledged. An instant later, she regretted the metaphor, saying, "I don't mean to trivialize it, nor do I mean to cover it up."

Handcuffed and wearing an orange jail uniform, Izaguirre appeared Wednesday in a San Francisco courtroom. He told a judge he would plead guilty to robbery for the July 2008 purse-snatchings. But for reasons that were left unclear, he then abruptly withdrew the plea and backed out of a deal with prosecutors that would have put him in prison for three years and four months. His trial is set to begin Sept. 4 and he could be deported afterward.


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"He is being prosecuted, and he will be deported with my full encouragement and support," Harris said.

Kiefer, who packages medical devices for a living, said she has left California for good, in part because of the trauma of nearly having been killed on her way to dinner last summer in Pacific Heights. Nearly a year later, she remains baffled that San Francisco authorities ever let Izaguirre and other illegal immigrant felons back onto the streets.

"If they're committing crimes," she said, "I think there's something wrong that they're not being deported."

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michael.finnegan@latimes.com

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