Oakland Mayor Proud She Tipped off Immigrants About ICE Raid
The mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf, said Tuesday that she was proud of warning the public about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plans to conduct a raid on undocumented immigrants in the Bay Area.
Schaaf, who is Jewish, announced in front of TV cameras on Saturday that she had “multiple credible sources” claiming that ICE was planning to make arrest in the Oakland area. She said she felt an ethical duty to warn those potentially affected.
ICE Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan criticized her actions, saying they were politically motivated and endangered ICE officers.
Schaaf defended her actions in an interview with The Washington Post, saying that she is committed to resisting the Trump administration’s immigration policies, even if it means jail time.
“I consider myself a law-abiding citizen. I consider myself a believer in an American democracy that moves towards a more just society. And I definitely consider myself part of the resistance,” she said.
Homan has suggested the Justice Department prosecute officials who promote efforts to shield immigrants targeted by ICE for deportation.
Schaaf would not say how she learned of the coming raid, but her warning seems to have had an impact. Homan claims ICE was seeking 864 “criminal aliens,” but detained just over 150 in the raid.
Contact Avichai Scher at [email protected] or on Twitter, @avi_scher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO