When Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tipped residents off last year that immigration agents would be conducting enforcement operations, President Trump called her actions a “disgrace.”
A Republican congressman from Iowa proposed criminal penalties for officials in so-called sanctuary cities who make similar disclosures.
The acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director at the time, Thomas Homan, said Schaaf was “no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police!’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood.”
Then, in the last month, Trump himself announced impending immigration operations over Twitter. On Friday morning, he reaffirmed that the operations to remove a large number of immigrants in the country illegally were set to proceed, stating that there was “nothing to be secret about.”
“If the word gets out, it gets out. It starts on Sunday,” Trump told reporters outside of the White House. “They’re going to take people out and they’re going to bring them back to their countries.”
ICE is expected to pursue at least 2,000 immigrants beginning Sunday.
And the Trump administration, it seemed, had pulled a Libby Schaaf.
Critics have said that Trump is touting operations to drum up support for his re-election campaign and believe tweets and leaks have removed the element of surprise for ICE.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, where they're highlighting an operation in advance," said John Sandweg, who headed ICE under President Obama. “Those people who were in the agency criticizing the Oakland mayor, I don’t think you can credibly say there’s a distinction here between what the administration has done.”
Schaaf said as much last month: “I ... find it a bit ironic that a president who was so critical of my informing my community about the potential of a raid has himself now warned the entire nation.”
