Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office provided free consultations and legal assistance to migrants charged with violent felonies in 2023, documents reveal.
The taxpayer-funded consultations were provided to migrants charged with various heinous crimes, such as rape, robbery, strangulation, aggravated assault and homicide by vehicle, in an ostensible effort to help them avoid convictions that would lead to their deportation, documents obtained by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) reveal. Krasner created the immigration counsel position in 2018 to provide the consultations and work on cases involving migrants.
“He is directly contradicting the purpose of a district attorney — to prosecute crimes — and using his office to help immigration violators evade the law,” Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI, said of Krasner. “The last thing the city needs is to keep criminal aliens there who may have earned deportation.”
IRLI outlined the issues with the case list and questioned the objectives of the immigration counsel position in an investigative report published Thursday.
Krasner first won election to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in 2017, after left-wing billionaire George Soros dropped well over $1 million to fund a super PAC to support him in the Democratic primary. Like all Soros-backed prosecutors, Krasner ran on a left-wing approach to criminal justice, which calls for ending mass incarceration and shielding migrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (RELATED: Soros DA Declines To Charge Pro-Palestinian Protester Accused Of Assaulting Officer)
This position focuses on obtaining “immigration-neutral” outcomes for defendants facing prosecution in Philadelphia, according to its website.
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 25: Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks to a reporter at of the election party of public defender Tiffany Caban moments before she claimed victory in the in the Queens District Attorney Democratic Primary election, June 25, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images)
In practice, reaching “immigration-neutral” outcomes typically means the immigration counsel works with prosecutors on lowering charges against non-citizens accused of various crimes — illegal immigrant defendants are not excluded from possible consultation, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and past reports. A foreign national charged with rape, for example, would likely face “immigration consequences,” i.e. apprehension and deportation by federal immigration authorities, upon the completion of their local criminal proceedings.
“I look at every case where the defendant has been identified as an immigrant to see if there’s an immigration-neutral outcome that is just,” explained immigration counsel Caleb Arnold. “Sometimes that means creating an outcome that doesn’t have any immigration consequences or minimized immigration consequences.”
On the onset of the new position, Krasner’s office repeatedly suggested the immigration counsel would not provide assistance to foreign nationals accused of high-level offenses like homicide and sex crimes.
Krasner said in a 2018 press release that the immigration counsel would focus on cases involving “low-level offenders who pose no threat to public safety” and that same day said his office would work on “cases that are not that serious, but have very serious immigration consequences.”
However, a case list of defendants who received consultations from the immigration counsel reveals that the district attorney’s office is helping potentially dangerous non-citizens avoid deportation.
IRLI filed a records request with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, asking for a list of “defendants Immigration Counsel Caleb Arnold has consulted with, or otherwise worked on, over the 2023 calendar year.”
The list that was handed over, which redacted names and case numbers, showed the following: 29 DUI cases; 21 aggravated assault, domestic violence and other crimes of violence cases; 26 possession of drugs with intent to distribute cases; 12 firearm cases; nine rape and indecent assault and sexual assault on a child cases, nine robbery or burglary cases and one vehicular homicide cases.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner listens to Mayor Jim Kenney speak at Independence Mall to reporters about his offices Election Task Force and Election Day security. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 7, 2022. (Photo by RYAN COLLERD / AFP) (Photo by RYAN COLLERD/AFP via Getty Images)
The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained the 2023 case list and confirmed the breakdown of charges.
It’s not immediately clear if the defendants charged with the most serious crimes were able to get their charges pleaded down or faced apprehension by federal immigration authorities. Krasner’s office did immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
In their investigative report, IRLI noted that the case list not only contradicts past claims by Krasner’s office, but it also gives special privileges to foreign nationals not afforded to U.S. citizens.
“However, prosecutors’ offices rarely, if ever, take special steps to minimize these consequences when defendants are U.S. citizens,” the report states. “And we are unaware of any DAs offices that employ special attorneys solely to insulate citizen criminal defendants from the effects of their criminal behavior.”
“It is utterly shocking that any DA’s office in the United States would pursue these kinds of irresponsible policies,” Matt O’Brien, director of investigation at IRLI, stated. “Essentially, DA Krasner is rewarding foreign nationals for committing crimes in the United States.”
“And he is doing so at the expense of the city he is sworn to protect,” he said.
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