Trump calls Oakland mayor’s immigration warning ‘a disgrace’

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room at the White House, in Washington, March 8, 2018. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room at the White House, in Washington, March 8, 2018. Photo: DOUG MILLS, NYT Photo: DOUG MILLS, NYT Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Trump calls Oakland mayor’s immigration warning ‘a disgrace’ 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

President Trump’s denunciation Thursday of Libby Schaaf, in televised remarks that were replete with inaccuracies, capped a week and a half of conservative criticism of the Oakland mayor and further elevated her newfound national prominence in the anti-Trump resistance.

Trump, echoing his attorney general and immigration chief as well as a host of Republican commentators and legislators, attacked Schaaf’s warning about an imminent deportation operation in Northern California, calling the public announcement “a disgrace” that endangered federal officers.

The president’s comments on Schaaf and California’s pro-immigrant sanctuary policies, made at the start of a Cabinet meeting, intensified questions about whether federal officials — Trump included — have accurately described the four-day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that began Feb. 25.

Trump said, incorrectly, that 150 people had been arrested during the operation called Keep Safe, which was designed to send a message to California leaders that they could not shield immigrants from federal law. ICE officials reported making 232 arrests.

The president said Schaaf had, in her Feb. 24 warning, told undocumented immigrants to “scatter” and “get out of here.” Though she did warn undocumented immigrants, Schaaf did not tell them to flee. In her statement that night, she said she sought to “encourage community awareness” and included contact information for an Oakland nonprofit group that provides legal help to those facing deportation.

Moreover, Trump said ICE had been prepared to arrest “close to 1,000 people” before Schaaf’s warning. The comments came a day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during a speech in Sacramento that “ICE failed to make 800 arrests that they would have made if the mayor had not acted as she did.”

But ICE has provided no information suggesting it tried to arrest that many people, and prior statements by the agency appear to contradict the figures.

In a Feb. 27 statement, before the operation ended, ICE’s acting director, Thomas Homan, said that “864 criminal aliens and public safety threats remain at large in the community, and I have to believe that some of them were able to elude us thanks to the mayor’s irresponsible decision.”

John Sandweg, who directed ICE under the Obama administration, said it’s hard to measure what impact Schaaf’s announcement might have had on the arrest numbers.

He suspects the higher numbers included everyone on an ICE target list. But in agency operations, he said, a fair percentage of people on target lists are not taken into custody, often because information the agency has on an individual, such as an address, ends up being faulty.

“To sit there and say 800 people got away, that’s probably misleading,” Sandweg said.

Still, he said Schaaf’s decision to announce the raid was “not ideal” for officer safety.

Trump also quoted the agency as saying that roughly 85 percent of those sought by federal officers had criminal records. ICE said that of 232 people arrested, 115 had past criminal convictions. Some of these people were not targets of the operation, instead falling into the category of “collateral arrests.”

Speaking with reporters Thursday, Schaaf — who has in the past been accused of being too moderate in some quarters of Oakland politics — wished Trump a “Happy International Women’s Day.”

“I am proud to live in a country where everyone can criticize elected officials,” said Schaaf, who was elected in 2014 and appears to be on track for re-election this fall. “I have obviously gotten much criticism, but much of it from outside of this community. ... I’m so grateful to live in this community.”

Some legal experts have said Schaaf probably averted legal jeopardy by not providing specific operation details in her warning, which she said relied on information from confidential sources.

Still, a number of lawyers have lined up to represent the mayor should the Justice Department pursue a case. Former U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag told The Chronicle she is advising Schaaf and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker without fee, but declined to comment further.

Trump said during his Thursday remarks that his administration should find a way to withhold federal grant money from places like California and Oakland that have enacted sanctuary policies limiting cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration agents.

The administration’s effort thus far has been blocked by the courts.

“You want the money, you can’t have the sanctuary cities. That way we avoid the court battles all the time, which we probably will win, but who needs it?” Trump said. “They want the money, they should give up on the sanctuary cities.”

Oakland’s laws on shielding immigrants go further than most. Last summer, the City Council rescinded an agreement that allowed Oakland police officers to work with federal agents on cases of human trafficking, drug smuggling and other cross-border crimes. In January, the council passed an ordinance that bars officers from giving any support — including traffic control — to federal immigration officers.

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed suit against California, accusing the state of interfering with immigration enforcement. The lawsuit aims to overturn three laws passed in 2017 that protect immigrants in the country illegally. At Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump, a regular critic of Sessions, said his department was doing “a fantastic job” on sanctuary cities.

Of Schaaf, Trump said, “What the mayor of Oakland did the other day was a disgrace, where they had close to 1,000 people ready to be gotten, ready to be taken off the streets. Many of them, they say, 85 percent of them were criminals and had criminal records. And the mayor of Oakland went out and she went out and warned them all, ‘Scatter,’ so instead of taking in 1,000, they took in a fraction of that, about 150.”

Trump referred to a Justice Department review of Schaaf’s actions, saying, “This was long in the planning and she said, ‘Get out of here,’ and she’s telling that to criminals, and it’s certainly something that we’re looking at with respect to her individually. ... She really made law enforcement much more dangerous than it had to be, so we’re looking at that situation very carefully.”

Other statements by ICE about the enforcement operation have been under scrutiny.

Officials said last week the government went after specific people and does not “target aliens indiscriminately.” But a construction worker from the Central Valley, Miguel Botello, told The Chronicle that he and three colleagues were stopped outside a convenience store in Atwater (Merced County) by ICE officers who asked to see proof of legal status.

The other three men were arrested, he said, and two were quickly deported to Mexico. ICE has provided no evidence that any of the men had been targeted in the operation.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Hamed Aleaziz contributed to this report.