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<h1 id="reader-title">Feds planning massive Northern California
immigration sweep to strike against sanctuary laws</h1>
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<hr><span class="auth-name">Hamed Aleaziz</span> <span
class="pipe">|</span> <span class="time"><span
class="time_on_label"> on</span> January 17, 2018</span>
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<p>U.S. immigration officials have begun preparing for a
major sweep in San Francisco and other Northern
California cities in which federal officers would look
to arrest more than 1,500 undocumented people while
sending a message that immigration policy will be
enforced in the sanctuary state, according to a source
familiar with the operation.</p>
<p>Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
known as ICE, declined to comment Tuesday on plans for
the operation.</p>
<p>The campaign, centered in the Bay Area, could happen
within weeks, and is expected to become the biggest
enforcement action of its kind under President Trump,
said the source, who requested anonymity because the
plans have not been made public.</p>
<p>Trump has expressed frustration that sanctuary laws —
which seek to protect immigrants and persuade them not
to live in the shadows by restricting cooperation
between local and federal authorities — get in the way
of his goal of tightening immigration.</p>
<p>The operation would go after people who have been
identified as targets for deportation, including those
who have been served with final deportation orders and
those with criminal histories, the source said. The
number could tick up if officers come across other
undocumented immigrants in the course of their actions
and make what are known as collateral arrests.</p>
<p>The sweep would represent the first large-scale
effort to target the region since Gov. Jerry Brown in
October signed legislation enacting a statewide
sanctuary law. Supporters say the law allows
undocumented immigrants to cooperate with local police
and seek education, health care and other public
services without worrying they will expose themselves
to possible deportation.</p>
<p>Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan slammed Brown for
signing SB54, which he said undermined public safety,
and signaled he was prepared to take action.</p>
<p>He said at the time that the federal government would
not allow California to be “a sanctuary state for
illegal aliens,” and would have no choice but to
“conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and
at worksites, which will inevitably result in
additional collateral arrests, instead of focusing on
arrests at jails and prisons where transfers are safer
for ICE officers and the community.”</p>
<p>Early this month, Homan told Fox News that
“California better hold on tight.” He said that if
local politicians “don’t want to protect their
communities, then ICE will.”</p>
<p>Told of the planned sweep, California Sen. Dianne
Feinstein expressed outrage Tuesday, saying immigrants
“must not be targeted in raids solely because they are
Californians.” She said a large-scale operation would
show that “the administration is carrying out its
enforcement actions to make a political point and not
based on the security of the country.”</p>
<p>The source who spoke to The Chronicle said the plan
calls for immigration officers to be flown in from
other parts of the country to help carry out the
operation. The sweep could span more than one day and
will include enforcement of work sites suspected of
illegally employing undocumented immigrants, the
source said.</p>
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<p>An ICE spokesman in San Francisco, James Schwab,
said in an email Tuesday that the agency “doesn’t
comment on future or current operations.”</p>
<p>Liberal-leaning lawmakers in the Bay Area and
across California have sparred for years with
federal officials over the role local agencies play
in immigration enforcement.</p>
<p>The tension intensified after the July 2015 killing
of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco Bay pier, when it
was revealed that the undocumented immigrant
shooter, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, had been released
from San Francisco Jail under the city’s sanctuary
ordinance, even though immigration officers had
asked that he be turned over for a sixth
deportation.</p>
<p>After Garcia Zarate was acquitted of murder charges
in November, Homan blamed San Francisco for
Steinle’s death, saying the shooting “could have
been prevented if San Francisco had simply turned
the alien over to ICE, as we requested, instead of
releasing him back onto the streets.”</p>
<p>The statewide legislation signed by Brown limits
the circumstances under which jails turn over
undocumented inmates to the federal government. It
also forbids police officers from arresting people
on civil immigration warrants and from joining
federal agents in task forces intended to enforce
immigration laws.</p>
<p>Under the Trump administration, ICE has repeatedly
warned that if the agency can’t detain people from
local jails, it will be forced to arrest them in the
communities that hold such policies.</p>
<p>Last week, a group of politicians, including Reps.
Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose,
sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen requesting a meeting with
her and Homan to clarify the remarks he made on Fox
News about stepping up enforcement in California.</p>
<p>“The statements are a direct threat to
Californians,” the letter read. “These statements
are reprehensible and the department’s change in
policy will instill fear in our communities. ...
Acting Director Homan’s attack on sanctuary cities
is not only an infringement of state rights but a
direct assault on communities of color.”</p>
<p>In recent years, ICE has not made a practice of
conducting major immigration sweeps in cities like
San Francisco and Oakland. In September, 27 people
were arrested in Santa Clara County as part of an
operation targeting sanctuary cities across the
country that led to 500 arrests. In June, federal
officers arrested 54 people in Central California.</p>
<p>Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor at Santa Clara
University School of Law and an immigration expert,
said that a major sweep in Northern California would
echo tactics seen under the George W. Bush
administration.</p>
<p>“This is a bluff since California continues to
resist,” he said. “This is more show than anything
else. They want to make it seem like they are
carrying through on this threat. ... I highly doubt
that ICE, in the way that it is currently funded,
has the ability and resources to maintain something
like this on a sustained basis.”</p>
<p>Gulasekaram said the raid would “tear up a lot of
lives” but have “little meaningful outcome on public
safety.”</p>
<p><em>Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle
staff writer. Email: <a
title="haleaziz@sfchronicle.com"
href="mailto:haleaziz@sfchronicle.com">haleaziz@sfchronicle.com</a>
Twitter: <a title="@haleaziz"
href="http://twitter.com/haleaziz">@haleaziz</a></em></p>
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