Gavin Newsom, California’s lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate, urged other local leaders on Sunday evening to follow Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and warn illegal immigrants in their communities of potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
“We can and must protect immigrant families from Donald Trump’s mass deportations. I want to thank Mayor Schaaf for her courage and hope more local leaders will follow her lead,” Newsom, who has vowed to keep California a “sanctuary state,” reportedly said.
Over the weekend, Schaaf notified illegal immigrants in Oakland that she had “credible evidence” of potential ICE raids and urged them to contact immigrant resource groups in the Bay Area. Schaaf said she was sending out the alert “not to panic our residents but to protect them.” The San Francisco Chronicle said Schaaf’s message was more than clear: “Not only will Oakland and its police force not cooperate with ICE, but the city will actively seek to thwart efforts to detain and deport” illegal immigrants.
Schaaf, who made national headlines earlier in the year when she said she is willing to go to jail while defending Oakland’s status as a sanctuary, received some criticism from other local leaders for creating “fear” and “hysteria.”
ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley reportedly reportedly said on Monday that sanctuary cities like Oakland could actually face an increase in “arrests in the community.”
“While the vast majority of cities in America do cooperate with ICE, others force ICE to assign additional resources to conduct at-large arrests in the community, putting officers, the general public and the aliens at greater risk and increasing the incidence of collateral arrests,” she reportedly said.