The Department of Justice should prosecute Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf with federal crimes for her shielding of illegal aliens with “sanctuary city” policies, said Don Rosenberg, president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crimes (AVIAC), in a Monday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
Rosenberg’s 25-year-old son Drew was killed while returning home from law school in San Francisco, California, when he was struck by a negligently driving illegal alien in 2010.
“[Libby Schaaf] should be immediately prosecuted for obstruction of justice and a violation of federal law title 8 U.S. Code § 1324,” said Rosenberg. “This woman has committed a felony. … The penalty for what she did is a minimum five-year sentence.”
Schaaf’s recent warning to illegal aliens about pending ICE enforcement actions in Oakland could expose her to federal prosecution, said Rosenberg. “If [Libby Schaaf’s] alerting these people makes one of those people run out of town, hide, do whatever, and ICE can’t pick them up, if that person then commits a crime, she could go to jail for 20 years. If that person kills somebody, she could go to jail for life.”
“I want to know where the Justice Department is,” said Rosenberg. “I want to know why they haven’t already filed charges against [Libby Schaaf]. And it’s really not just her. … Every time a mayor get on TV [and] tells people, ‘Come here. I’ll protect you’ — which pretty much they’re all doing — that’s a felony. I’m more angry at the Justice Department than I am [at Schaaf].”
The Justice Department is failing to pursue lawless city and state officials openly violating federal immigration law, said Rosenberg. “Bill de Blasio, Rahm Emanuel … Eric Garcetti,” he said. “All these guys have violated federal law, and the DOJ is doing nothing about it.”
Federal prosecution of Schaaf would deter other local and state officials from violating and nullifying federal immigration law, said Rosenberg. “If you want to stop this nonsense, drag her ass into jail and prosecute her, and the rest of these people will stop. Right now, there’s no skin off their back for what they’re doing.”
Via 8 U.S. Code § 1324, it is a felony to knowingly or recklessly conceal, harbor, or shield an illegal alien from detection. It is also a felony to knowingly or recklessly induce aliens to unlawfully come to, enter, or reside in the country.
The killer of Rosenberg’s son was shielded from deportation via Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a federal designation for countries deemed too dangerous for its nationals to return to. As a Honduran national who illegally entered America in 1999, he applied for and received TPS protection in 2000. Honduras was listed as a TPS country in 1999 due to a hurricane and remains listed today.
“[TPS] is very protective but not the least bit temporary,” quipped Rosenberg.
Rosenberg’s son’s killer had “been caught driving without a license” prior to the 2010 killing, but he was released via California’s policy at the time, Rosenberg said.
“Instead of prosecuting [my son’s killer], San Francisco just [did] what their policy was,” said Rosenberg. “If you were here illegally — and back then [an illegal alien] couldn’t get a driver’s license — they just let you go. They didn’t prosecute. So what did he do? He just kept driving.”
Rosenberg blamed “sanctuary” policies for enabling his son’s killer to remain in the country, noting that tens of thousands of other Americans had been harmed by crimes committed by illegal aliens shielded by such policies.
“Sanctuary policy allowed [my son’s killer] to do what he did,” said Rosenberg. “Had he been prosecuted and gotten convicted, he probably wouldn’t have driven again because under TPS, two misdemeanors, and you’ll be deported,” said Rosenberg. “So he would’ve faced deportation if he would’ve been caught driving without a license one more time, but if there’s no penalty, you’ll do whatever it is you want to do.”
The justice system mistreats the families of victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens, said Rosenberg, reflecting on his experiences in pursuing justice following the killing of his son.
State prosecutors had no interest in convicting his son’s killer, said Rosenberg. The district attorney’s office, he said, “wanted to blow the case off as fast as they could. They wanted a plea bargain and to be done with it. My wife and I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They were very uncooperative. They withheld evidence. They lied to us. This is the same guy that did the Kate Steinle case. No interest on their part — and there wasn’t in [the Kate Steinle case], either — to get a conviction.”
Rosenberg said that during a break in legal proceedings at the courthouse, a woman managing the assistant district attorneys told him and his wife to “get over it.”
Abusive treatment of American citizens by the legal system is standard fare across the country when dealing with crimes committed by illegal aliens, said Rosenberg, drawing on his interactions with hundreds of such people. Illegal aliens, conversely, are treated sympathetically within the justice system.
“What I found out after talking … to hundreds of other people who had gone through this: My case was not the exception; it was the rule. People are treated like crap. We’re treated as the criminals, and these people are like, ‘How dare you want us to prosecute this person? He’s just trying to survive.’ That’s just the way it is–and even in conservative areas. … I’ve talked to people in Tennessee, in Kentucky, in Texas — very conservative states, and it’s the same thing.
In January, Schaaf vowed to face jail time in an effort to shield illegal aliens from facing America’s illegal immigration laws.
California’s violation of federal law and defiance of the federal government share parallels with the Confederacy, said Mansour and Pollak.
“[Libby Schaaf] has gone full-Confederate, basically,” said Mansour. “She has had her firing on Fort Sumter moment where she’s just basically at war with the federal government. This time, she’s decided that she’s not going to abide by any laws having to do with our Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
“California now, in a sense, is waving the Confederate flag against Donald Trump and the federal government and putting communities at risk,” said Pollak.
AVIAC is an organization run by people who have lost family members to crimes committed by illegal aliens, raising awareness of the impacts of illegal immigration.
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
LISTEN:
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.