To be a sanctuary city in America takes a number of different forms, but the term is usually used to describe a place where local officials – police officers, mostly – will refuse to honor detainer requests coming from the Department of Homeland Security. In other words, if they have an illegal immigrant in their jails ready for release, they’re just going to let them go rather than turn them over for deportation. In some locales, policies forbid local officials from even communicating with ICE or allowing them to step foot on city property.
But in Oakland last February, Democrat Mayor Libby Schaaf took the term “sanctuary city” to a whole new level.
Oakland already blocks their officials from cooperating with ICE (well, for that matter, the entire state of California now does this), but Schaaf went so far as to actually catch wind of an impending raid in her town…and WARN illegal immigrants in her community to run for cover. She was mercilessly criticized for this piece of lawlessness at the time, and ICE officials blamed her for allowing hundreds of criminals to escape justice.
But looking back on it in an interview with BuzzFeed, Schaaf said she was still proud of her actions.
“I have no regrets, none,” she said. “The more time goes by, the more certain I feel that I did the right thing in standing up for our community and pointing out our values are not aligned with our laws. That’s hopefully the message that is sent out.”
As for the agency responsible for enforcing those laws, Schaaf determined that ICE had wavered from its purpose.
“This agency has gone astray and has so broken the trust – particularly in cities like mine – I believe we would all be better served to start from scratch,” she said.
In other words, she’s part of the “Abolish ICE” bandwagon, which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given her decision to thwart their raid this year.
“What she did is no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘Police!’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to a whole community,” said the then-ICE Director Thomas Homan at the time. “There’s over 800 significant public safety threat criminals that we are unable to locate because of that warning, so that community’s a lot less safe than it would’ve been.”
Yes, but to people like Schaaf, it’s more important for us to all put our heads in the sand, pretend that every illegal immigrant is a precious gift from God to our nation, and protect them at the expense of, you know, the actual American citizens that might be victimized by these criminals.
Schaaf should have been under federal investigation after this wildly inappropriate decision. Instead, she probably set herself up for a quick trip up the political ladder. Which, all by itself, tells you everything you need to know about the Democratic Party.
Comments are closed.