More than 150 arrested in latest California immigration raids

More than 150 people were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week in Northern California.

ICE arrested immigrants who violated U.S. immigration laws this week during “targeted immigration enforcement operations” in the San Francisco area, the agency said in a statement.

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On Saturday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a warning that ICE agents were planning to arrest people after she received confidential tips and checked with attorneys to make sure she wasn’t breaking federal law by going public with the information, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

ICE said the mayor used the warning to score political points and also cause some criminals to evade the raids.

“The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens — making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold,” ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan said in a statement.

ICE has expressed frustration with “sanctuary cities,” which do not cooperate with federal immigrations laws.

“Sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Oakland shield dangerous criminal aliens from federal law enforcement at the expense of public safety,” Homan said. “Because these jurisdictions prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of a jail, they also force ICE officers to make more arrests out in the community, which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public.”

President Trump has also criticized sanctuary laws and said last week that he was considering pulling immigration enforcement officials from California because of them.

“If we ever pulled our ICE out, if we ever said, ‘hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves,’ in two months they’d be begging for us to come back, they would be begging. And you know what, I’m thinking about doing it,” the president said.