Oakland City Council Passes ‘Abolish ICE’ Resolution

Oakland’s city council unanimously approved a resolution on Monday evening calling on Congress to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf made headlines months before Democratic-Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) upset longtime Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) in a primary earlier this year when Schaaf alerted illegal immigrants in the Bay Area of impending ICE raids. Schaaf also signed a letter calling for ICE to be abolished.

Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who authored the resolution, told the East Bay Citizen that “ICE’s actions have had ramifications in our own backyard.”

“ICE came into West Oakland and tore apart a family while falsely slandering them–claiming it was a criminal case–when they were filing a civil deportation action and no criminal charges,” she reportedly said. “We’ve now experienced enough of ICE telling lies, ripping apart families, and leaving guns loose where they get into the hands of murderers and spreading racism.”

Oakland, which has been a “sanctuary city” since 1986, has in recent years passed resolutions that declared that ICE’s presence in “Oakland is causing trauma in the community, and causing a chilling effect that weakens cooperation with local law enforcement” and prohibited the Oakland Police Department from providing “law enforcement assistance, including traffic support, to ICE including any subdivision of ICE, in any capacity, except to respond to a public safety emergency.”