Immigration chief: California officials should thank me for removing ‘public threats’

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan said Thursday that California lawmakers should be thanking him for removing “public threats” instead of helping undocumented immigrants evade deportation.

“I would think that the Oakland mayor and the Congressional representatives in California would send me letters thanking me for removing public safety threats,” Homan said, in an interview with Fox News. His remarks came after he read a list of crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants who were detained during recent raids.

The Democratic mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaff, sparked controversy when she warned city residents about a planned ICE raid. The warning reportedly

Homan also blasted California Sen. Kamala Harris (D) who accused the Trump administration of abusing its authority with ICE to throw “red meat” to the GOP base.

“They want to keep playing this political game, put smoke and mirrors up about what ICE is actually doing,” Homan said. “She’s wrong.”

“I’ve tried to meet with Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein three separate occasions over the past two months to explain to them what ICE is doing. They’ve cancelled every one of those meetings,” Homan said. “They don’t want to know the facts.”

In Oakland, Schaaf’s warnings reportedly helped hundreds of undocumented immigrants escape detection by ICE during recent raids.

ICE confirmed that about 150 undocumented immigrants were arrested during “targeted immigration enforcement operations” in the San Francisco area.

“She gave them warning, and there’s 800 that we were unable to locate because of that warning, so that community is a lot less safe than it would have been,” Homan said on “Fox & Friends” last week.

“I watched her statement where she says her priority is the safety of her community. Well what she did had the exact opposite effect,” he added.