ICE spokesman cites ‘false’ raid claim in resigning

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has resigned over what he described as “false” and “misleading” statements made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ICE acting director Thomas Homan.

James Schwab worked out of the agency’s San Francisco office until he quit last week. He said he had been told to “deflect” questions about the Oakland mayor’s interference with an ICE raid last month and to refer reporters to statements from Sessions and Homan that suggested that hundreds of “criminals” escaped capture in Northern California because the mayor tipped them off.

“I quit because I didn’t want to perpetuate misleading facts,” Schwab told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I asked them to change the information. I told them that the information was wrong; they asked me to deflect, and I didn’t agree with that.”

Sessions, Homan and President Donald Trump criticized Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, for issuing a public warning in late February about an imminent ICE raid in the region.

Schwab told KTVU after resigning that ICE captured 232 immigrants suspected of living in the country illegally — even more than officials had originally expected. About half of the people picked up had felonies or misdemeanors on their records, officials say.

In the raid’s aftermath, officials in Washington had suggested that more than 800 criminals had escaped because of the mayor’s actions.

“Those are 800 wanted criminals that are now at large in that community, 800 wanted criminals that ICE will now have to pursue by other means, with more difficulty, in dangerous situations, all because of one irresponsible action,” Sessions said in blasting the mayor last week in Sacramento.

At a campaign rally over the weekend in Pennsylvania, Trump told the crowd that ICE had been prepared to arrest “close to 1,000 people” but got “a fraction” of that, thanks to the mayor — and called Schaaf a disgrace.

Schwab said he wanted to set the record straight.

The officials from Washington had been referring to the raid’s target list of 1,000 people, he said, but immigration sweeps never net anywhere close to the total number of targets.

“We were never going to pick up that many people,” he said. “To say that 100 percent are dangerous criminals on the street, or that those people weren’t picked up because of the misguided actions of the mayor, is just wrong.”