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ICE spokesman says he quit over 'false' claims by DOJ officials

March 14, 2018 04:32·
Sanctuary cities putting money in hands of cartels, Trump administration says

Sanctuary cities putting money in hands of cartels, Trump administration says

As CNN reports, Schwab accused Sessions and Acting Director Tom Homan of deliberately spreading misleading information after ICE slammed Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's decision to warn the public about upcoming ICE raids.

Schwab, however, told the Chronicle that those statements were falsehoods, and led to his resignation.

Schwab told several media outlets that the statement was false, in part, because ICE raids never result in the arrest of 100 percent of the targets.

Sanctuary cities are actually enticing more people to pay smugglers to help them make the unsafe trek north, not only putting people at risk but also enriching the smuggling cartels themselves, a senior administration official said Monday. "Then I took some time and I quit".

"Even one criminal alien on the street can put public safety at risk and as Director Homan stated, while we can't put a number on how many targets avoided arrest due to the mayor's warning, it clearly had an impact".

"Those are 800 wanted aliens that are now at large in that community -most are wanted criminals that ICE will now have to pursue with more difficulty in more unsafe situations, all because of one mayor's irresponsible action". Schwab appears to be the first official casualty of that PR war. "To say that 100 percent are risky criminals on the street, or that those people weren't picked up because of the misguided actions of the mayor, is just wrong", Schwab said. At the time, Schaaf said she wanted to protect "law-abiding" immigrants from "the constant threat of arrest and deportation". About half of the people picked up had felonies or misdemeanors on their records, officials say.

Meanwhile, President Trump, who called Schaaf a disgrace during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, said ICE was prepared to arrest "close to 1,000 people", but only got "a fraction" of that thanks to Schaaf. The Chronicle quoted unnamed ICE officials confirming Schwab's resignation but declining to discuss specifics, citing confidentiality for personnel matters.


Schaaf's warning on February 24, an attempt to protect undocumented immigrants who did not have criminal charges against them and would be separated from their families if detained, ruined the operation that would have arrested potentially hundreds of "criminal aliens", according to statements from ICE Acting Director Thomas D. Homan, Sessions, and Trump.

CNN has reached out to ICE in Washington and the Department of Justice for comment.

In his attack on Schaaf, Trump said 85 percent of the targeted immigrants had criminal records.

In actuality, Schwab said, the raid was more successful than ICE planned. Obama EPA chief: Reg rollback won't stand MORE said that Homan had told him "ICE failed to make 800 arrests that they would have made if the mayor had not acted as she did". I think she could have had other options.

"I commend Mr. Schwab for speaking the truth while under intense pressure to lie", she said in a statement to The Post. Schwab told CNN he'd "never" been in a situation "where someone asked me to deflect when we absolutely knew something was awry".

"It's the job of a public affairs officer to offer transparency for the agency you work for", Schwab told the Chronicle. I felt like we weren't doing that.

He added when he took the job in August 2015 during the Obama administration, after having worked as a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Army Reserve in Mountain View and as a spokesman for the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field for more than 15 years, he never could have imagined what he would be asked to do.

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