SF Gate (California)
By Kimberly Veklerov
March 08, 2018
President Trump on Thursday called Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s public warning before an immigration enforcement operation “a disgrace,” while making a series of false statements about Schaaf and the sweep.
Trump stated, incorrectly, that 150 people had been arrested during the four-day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Northern California that began Feb. 25. In fact, ICE officials reported making 232 arrests.
The president said Schaaf had, in her Feb. 24 warning, told undocumented immigrants to “scatter” and “get out of here.” Schaaf did not use those words. In her statement that night, the mayor said she was trying to “encourage community awareness” and included contact information for an Oakland nonprofit group that provides legal assistance to those facing deportation.
Trump said ICE had been prepared to arrest “close to 1,000 people” before Schaaf’s warning. The comments came a day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during a visit to Sacramento that “ICE failed to make 800 arrests that they would have made if the mayor had not acted as she did.”
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf responds to criticism from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump Administration’s decision to sue California’s over sanctuary laws.
But ICE has provided no evidence that it tried to arrest this many people. In a Feb. 27 statement, before the operation ended, ICE chief Thomas Homan said that “864 criminal aliens and public safety threats remain at large in the community, and I have to believe that some of them were able to elude us thanks to the mayor’s irresponsible decision.”
Trump also quoted the agency as saying that roughly 85 percent of those sought by ICE had criminal records. ICE said that of 232 people arrested, 115 had past criminal convictions. Some of these people were not targets of the operation, instead falling into the category of “collateral arrests.”
Trump made the televised remarks on Schaaf and sanctuary cities at the start of a cabinet meeting. He said his administration should find a way to withhold federal grant money from places like California and Oakland that have enacted policies that limit cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration agents.
“You want the money, you can’t have the sanctuary cities, that way we avoid the court battles all the time, which we probably will win but who needs it?” Trump said. “They want the money, they should give up on the sanctuary cities.
Of Schaaf, Trump said, “What the mayor of Oakland did the other day was a disgrace, where they had close to 1,000 people ready to be gotten, ready to be taken off the streets. Many of them, they say, 85 percent of them were criminals and had criminal records. And the mayor of Oakland went out and she went out and warned them all, ‘Scatter,’ so instead of taking in 1,000, they took in a fraction of that, about 150.”
Trump referred to a Justice Department review of Schaaf’s actions, saying, “This was long in the planning and she said, ‘Get out of here,’ and she’s telling that to criminals and it’s certainly something that we’re looking at with respect to her individually. … She really made law enforcement much more dangerous than it had to be, so we’re looking at that situation very carefully.”
Some legal experts said Schaaf likely averted legal jeopardy by not providing specific operation details in her warning, which she said relied on information from confidential sources. Still, a number of lawyers have lined up to represent the mayor should the Justice Department pursue a case. Former U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag told The Chronicle she is advising Schaaf and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker without fee, but declined to comment further.
A spokesman for Schaaf did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday, but the mayor tweeted out a statement from the U.S. Conference of Mayors that defended California’s leaders from Sessions’ “decision to yet again threaten mayors and demonize our immigrant communities.”
The Justice Department on Tuesday filed suit against California, accusing the state of unconstitutionally interfering with immigration enforcement. The lawsuit aims to overturn three laws passed in 2017 that give protections to migrants who are in the country illegally.
At the cabinet meeting, Trump, a regular critic of Sessions, said his department was doing “a fantastic job” on sanctuary cities.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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