AndrewBlakeOakland, CA – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is preparing a major operation in which they hope to arrest more than 1,500 illegal immigrants in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Law enforcement officials in the Bay Area said they haven’t been informed about what ICE was planning, but at least one police agency has been ordered not to assist ICE, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Oakland City Council passed a resolution in response to the reported impending ICE raid that prohibited local police from assisting federal immigration authorities with anything, including even traffic control for immigration-enforcement actions.
However, 62 percent of Oakland City residents said that their police department should assist federal law enforcement authorities as requested, according to a poll conducted by KPIX.
Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick was caught in the middle, but planned to acquiesce to the demands of her employers.
“I serve this community through the voice of our City Council, and if it is the will of our City Council that there is no ability to cooperate, that will be honored,” Chief Kirkpatrick told KPIX.
President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with state and local sanctuary policies that won’t allow local police to cooperate with federal agents.
The major sweep sources predicted to the San Francisco Chronicle is expected in the upcoming weeks, and should be the largest immigration enforcement action thus far in the Trump administration.
Thomas Homan, the acting director of ICE, recently said California “better hold on tight” when California put a sanctuary state law into effect in January.
Homan said that if local officials “don’t want to protect their communities, then ICE will.”
ICE officials told the San Francisco Chronicle they “could not speculate” on planned enforcement actions.
The source told the newspaper that the operation will go after people who are targets for deportation, including those with criminal histories or who have been served with final deportation orders.
California’s U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both Democrats, sent a letter to Homan that stated they were “deeply concerned” about reports of an impending raid.
They wrote that they wanted to be briefed on the specifics of the plan, and expressed concern that the raids would affect illegal immigrants who happened to be “simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The San Francisco Chronicle contacted officials with the San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Richmond, and San Rafael police departments, as well as the Santa Clara and Alameda counties’ sheriff’s offices, and all those agencies claimed they had not been notified of any pending ICE operations.