If you’re on the receiving end of a rant from Donald Trump, you must be doing something right. Ask Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who, in anticipation of an imminent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, called on her immigrant residents to learn about their basic rights. For likely preventing scores of immigrant families with no criminal record from being swept up, right-wing media has essentially called for her head. The bully-in-chief joined in this week:
Trump, echoing his attorney general and immigration chief as well as a host of Republican commentators and legislators, attacked Schaaf’s warning about an imminent deportation operation in Northern California, calling the public announcement “a disgrace” that endangered federal officers.
But as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, Trump’s rant, per usual, was “replete with inaccuracies,” exaggerating the numbers of immigrants ICE was prepared to arrest and claiming that “the mayor of Oakland went out ... and warned them all, ‘scatter.’” Back on planet Earth, what Schaaf did was provide no “specific operation details” other than to say raids were imminent in Northern California, and directed residents to resources regarding legal assistance and their rights. And the fact that this is one of the things that’s agitated the administration says everything.
Trump also quoted [ICE] as saying that roughly 85 percent of those sought by federal officers had criminal records. ICE said that of 232 people arrested, 115 had past criminal convictions. Some of these people were not targets of the operation, instead falling into the category of “collateral arrests.”
That means that roughly half of these so-called “bad hombres” had no criminal record at all. Despite lacking legal status, these could be otherwise law-abiding taxpayers, parents, and community members, all now on a possible path to deportation.
Those arrests were the ones that Schaaf was trying to avert, and for that, right-wing media has called for her to be locked up:
“’They need to lock her up,’ wrote a columnist for conservative commentary site Townhall. ‘If Libby wants to pay lip service to the rule of law while harboring criminal illegal aliens in our country, then let’s make her dreams come true. Lock her up, Sessions!’”
"What she was doing,” said former Immigration Lawyers Association president David Leopold, “was nothing more than telling people what their rights are … she didn't do anything that would violate the law. That's why they're taunting her ... they don't have a particular statute that they're pointing to. Because there is none."
Schaaf’s actions have earned praise from those resisting Trump’s agenda of hate, and she’s taking Trump and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s attacks in stride. “I am proud to live in a country where everyone can criticize elected officials,” she said. “I have obviously gotten much criticism, but much of it from outside of this community. ... I’m so grateful to live in this community”:
Speaking with reporters Thursday, Schaaf — who has in the past been accused of being too moderate in some quarters of Oakland politics — wished Trump a “Happy International Women’s Day.”