Defiant Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf raised the ire of the Justice Department this week when she brazenly ignored federal law and warned the city’s illegal immigrants about an upcoming raid.
Trump’s Justice Department is considering slapping Schaaf with an obstruction of justice charge. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned Thursday that the federal government was not going to turn a blind-eye to Oakland’s mischief.
Schaaf warned Oakland’s immigrant community of an upcoming ICE raid 24 hours before agents began rounding people up. 115 illegals with significant felony records were nabbed. Even more dangerous criminals might have been taken off of the streets if Schaaf hadn’t interfered.
She defends herself by claiming that she didn’t learn about the raid through official channels.
“I hope we take this moment to recognize that we have to fight against the racist myth that the Trump administration is trying to perpetuate, that immigrants are dangerous criminals. There is nothing farther from the truth,” Schaaf said.
“This is racist, and it is false. Ample evidence shows that American-born citizens are actually more likely to commit crimes than immigrants. We have a criminal justice system. We should let that work. We should not conflate it with our broken immigration system.”
Schaaf has a right to make decisions for her city, but not to defy the federal government. She purposefully interfered with ICE’s mission.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Oakland shield dangerous criminal aliens from federal law enforcement at the expense of public safety… The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens – making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold,” said ICE Deputy Director Thomas D. Homan.
“Thanks to the dedicated and professional work of ICE deportation officers, we were able to remove many public safety threats from the streets of the Bay Area during the past few days. However, 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.”
Schaaf says she has no regrets about what she did.
(Source: Washington Post)