Senators ask for probe into ICE spokesman’s resignation

President Trump with Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen and ICE chief Thomas Homan. President Trump with Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen and ICE chief Thomas Homan. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, Associated Press Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Senators ask for probe into ICE spokesman’s resignation 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

California’s U.S. senators and several Democratic colleagues called Thursday for an investigation into the resignation of a federal immigration agency spokesman who quit after a Northern California sweep for undocumented migrants, saying he was being asked to perpetuate false statements by Trump administration officials about the operation.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s spokesman in San Francisco, James Schwab, told The Chronicle this month that he resigned in frustration over statements by ICE chief Thomas Homan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions that 800 people had eluded the agency because of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s public warning before the operation. Schwab said the number was probably far lower.

The mayor’s Feb. 24 warning came on the eve of a four-day immigration sweep that resulted in 232 arrests.

On Thursday, California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris asked the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General to look into Schwab’s allegations and the accuracy of administration officials’ statements about the operation. Homeland Security is ICE’s parent agency.

“We have serious concerns that Trump administration officials are misrepresenting the facts and statistics surrounding this enforcement action for political purposes,” Feinstein and Harris wrote in a letter to Homeland Security, which was also signed by 10 other Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Dick Durbin of Illinois.

The senators are asking the inspector general to look into key details about the operation, including communications between Schwab and others in the agency, data on who was arrested, and whether Trump administration officials knowingly made false statements. They are also asking whether officials had political motives for ordering the sweep.

“Public policies and law enforcement operations must be informed by facts,” the senators wrote, and, “not the fabricated overstatements or distortions of political officials.”

Schwab, who was hired in 2015 and resigned earlier this month, told The Chronicle he had wanted the agency to correct the assertion that 800 people avoided ICE because of Schaaf, and didn’t want to deflect media questions about it.

“I quit because I didn’t want to perpetuate misleading facts,” Schwab said. “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.”

Sessions said in a March 7 speech in Sacramento that he had learned from Homan that “ICE failed to make 800 arrests that would have been made if the mayor had not made her statement. Those are 800 wanted criminals that are now at large in that community.”

A day after that, President Trump said ICE had been prepared to arrest “close to 1,000 people” before Schaaf’s warning.

Following Schwab’s resignation, ICE spokeswoman Liz Johnson said in a statement: “Even one criminal alien on the street can put public safety at risk and, as Director Homan stated, while we can’t put a number on how many targets avoided arrest due to the mayor’s warning, it clearly had an impact.”