Oakland Mayor Attacks ICE as ‘Racist’ After Warning Illegal Immigrants of Impending Raids

Oakland Mayor Attacks ICE as ‘Racist’ After Warning Illegal Immigrants of Impending Raids

California – Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is attacking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, demanding that they are “racist” for doing their jobs to arrest illegal immigrants.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf

Schaff also warned the illegal immigrant community of upcoming raids just hours before the agency began knocking on doors, which Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE has likened to a “gang lookout yelling ‘police.’”

The operation, which began on Saturday evening, has arrested 150 illegal immigrants thus far, but Homan says that there are another 800 that they can’t locate because of Schaff’s warning.

“There’s 800 that we are unable to locate because of that warning, so that community is a lot less safe than it would have been,” Homan said during an appearance on Fox News.

He added that the warning “is no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to the entire community.”

“I’ll say this to the mayor and every other politician that wants to vilify the men and women of ICE — we are not going away, we are going to keep enforcing the law,” Homan said.

Speaking to the SF Gate, Schaff responded to Homan’s concerns by yelling “racism.” She also confirmed that she had learned about the raid through “confidential sources.

“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,” Schaaf said. “There is nothing further from the truth. This is racist and it is false. Ample evidence shows that American-born citizens are actually more likely to commit crimes than immigrants.

Roughly 50% of those arrested during the sweep had criminal records, including crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon.

The Department of Justice is now looking into possible obstruction charges against the activist mayor.