Senators call for probe into Schwab’s resignation
California’s U.S senators and other Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the resignation of former Bay Area ICE spokesman James Schwab, who abruptly left his post earlier this month over false statements he said the agency made.
Schwab said he left the agency’s San Francisco office because he could not echo statements made by the Trump administration and ICE officials about Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s recent warning about immigration raids that he knew to be false.
He pointed to statements made by ICE Director Tom Homan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who have said that Schaaf’s warning Feb. 24 about an ICE raid in Northern California resulted in several hundred undocumented immigrants eluding arrest, according to multiple media outlets. Schwab contends that number was far less.
In a letter Thursday, California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris called on theDe--
partment of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General to investigate Schwab’s resignation and whether statements made by the Trump administration about the ICE operation were accurate.
“We have serious concerns that Trump administration officials are misrepresenting the facts and statistics surrounding this enforcement action for political purposes,” the letter read. “Public policies and law enforce- ment operations must be informed by facts, not the fabricated overstatements or distortions of political officials.”
The letter, signed by 10 other senators, also asks officials to look at communication between Schwab and others in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. They are also asking for an investigation into the total number of people arrested during the Bay Area ICE operation — including those convicted of violent crimes and those with final removal orders— and whether anyone within DHS knowingly made false statements about the operation.
Schwab, who has not responded to multiple requests for comment, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he quit because he didn’t want to “perpetuate misleading facts” and deflect media questions about the incident. He also told several media outlets that the administration’s statements about the ICE arrests were false, in part, because ICE raids never result in the arrest of everyone targeted. He told KTVU that the four- day operation last month, which led to the arrests of 232 undocumented immigrants, was “more suc- cessful than the agency had hoped.”
“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. Then I took some time and I quit,” he said.
Schwab joined the agency in 2015. Schaaf applauded Schwab for “speaking the truth while under intense pressure to lie.” She added, “Our de- mocracy depends on public servants who act with integrity and hold transparency in the highest regard.”