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WATCH: Oakland Mayor Schaaf defends her position on ICE raids and wants to fight against the “racist myth that the Trump Administration is trying to perpetuate.” CLICK HERE if you’re having trouble viewing the video or gallery on your mobile device.
The Bay Area became ground zero Wednesday for clashes over immigration as hundreds of protesters gathered in San Francisco to rally against this week’s widespread immigration raids, and a battle heated up over whether Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf should be jailed for warning the community that a sweep was coming.
“What I did was legal,” and the morally right thing to do, Schaaf told reporters at Oakland City Hall on Wednesday, defending herself against calls that federal authorities charge her with obstruction of justice.
Schaaf, who says she has been the target of death threats since she made her public warning Saturday, is facing a growing storm of criticism from the Trump administration and supporters of its efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants, many of whom live and work in the Bay Area.
“Lock Libby Up,” read a headline Wednesday in the conservative leaning Washington Times.
“What she did was no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police!’ when a police cruiser comes into the neighborhood, except she did it to the entire community,” Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview Wednesday with Fox News. He said Schaaf is to blame for ICE agents capturing just 150 of the 864 undocumented immigrants they were seeking earlier this week, and he accused the mayor of putting agents in danger. The Justice Department, he said, is reviewing the matter.
Legal experts differ, however, over whether the feds could make a strong case against Schaaf.
Michael Cardoza, a former Alameda County prosecutor turned criminal defense lawyer, believes they could — especially if she received the information about the raids through official sources, which Schaaf insists she did not.
“It’s like saying they’re going to search your house tonight, so you better go get rid of your drugs,” Cardoza said. But securing a conviction in the overwhelmingly liberal Bay Area would be more difficult, he said.
“But they might think to do it anyway to send a message — don’t do this again or we will arrest you again,” he said. “I know you don’t want to break families up. On a moral level, I understand that … But we have laws, and she doesn’t get to impose her feelings on those laws, especially as mayor.”
But law professors Deep Gulasekaram from Santa Clara University and Niels Frenzen from the University of Southern California say it would be a thin case against the mayor at best. It would be stronger if the mayor had released addresses of the raids or advocated for people to resist ICE, they said.
“Nothing in her statement encouraged people to break the law,” Gulasekaram said. “It’s hard for me to think of what charge you could bring against her. The real thrust of her statement was to encourage people to make sure they know their rights … None of that is illegal.”
As Frenzen put it, an obstruction case against Schaaf is “absurd,” and the mayor did nothing more than Homan himself has done in the past, where he told Fox News in January that California “better hold on tight” if it continued to provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
“Who doesn’t know that there is increased immigration enforcement?” Frenzen asked.
In San Francisco on Wednesday, more than 300 protesters staged a sit in outside the ICE office on Sansome Street, with signs saying “sanctuary for all.”
“We’re here to stand for justice and due process for all people,” said Anand Singh, president of Unite Here! Local 2 union, which represents thousands of workers in the service industry in the U.S. and Canada. Singh said Oakland, San Francisco and California have placed themselves on the “right side of history” in defending and protecting immigrant families.
San Francisco Interim Mayor Mark Farrell made a brief appearance at the rally, saying “our immigrant community here in San Francisco and throughout the country is under attack by the federal administration, and I think it’s important that everyone resist in their own way. We always have been and we always will be a sanctuary city.”
In Oakland, Schaaf told reporters Wednesday that she has no regrets and was morally obligated to give undocumented families a heads-up Saturday. ICE acknowledged that only about half of those detained Sunday through Tuesday across Northern California, from Hayward and Oakland to Sacramento and Stockton, had criminal records.
“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’s false.”
Schaaf also said that “political retaliation should not be tolerated” for Oakland being a sanctuary city.
“Just as I’m being criticized, I’m being thanked,” Schaaf said. “Thanked for standing up.”
Homan, the ICE director, told Fox News, however, that sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Oakland “shield dangerous criminal aliens from federal law enforcement at the expense of public safety. Because these jurisdictions prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of a jail, they also force ICE officers to make more arrests out in the community, which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public.”
In San Jose, police Chief Eddie Garcia reiterated that SJPD does not participate in ICE enforcement. The chief has made numerous public appearances to reassure immigrant communities of that separation, which he said ICE has recognized. But he also said SJPD “cannot obstruct lawful federal enforcement activity by alerting the media to such activity occurring in San Jose.”
“ICE activity creates anxiety in segments of our diverse community, and when ICE alerts us about activity in our area, we are subsequently able to communicate with community stakeholders to quell, and not exacerbate, fear in our city,” Garcia said.
Oakland Councilman Noel Gallo, who represents the Fruitvale district, which has a sizable immigrant population, said he worries the Trump Administration may send more ICE agents to Oakland as retaliation.
“We started a firestorm,” Gallo said outside City Hall on Wednesday. “Creating fear at both ends doesn’t solve anything.”
Staff Writers Robert Salonga, Patrick May and Mark Gomez contributed to this report.
