Heads Up

Oakland Mayor Defies Trump to Warn Residents About ICE Raids

Said she wanted to “protect” the city’s immigrants.

The mayor of Oakland has warned residents after she received intel that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were planning raids in her city. In an extraordinary intervention, Mayor Libby Schaaf said she was passing on the information “not to panic our residents but to protect them,” and said she’d reached out to leaders in immigrant communities to make sure people can prepare for the incoming raids. Oakland’s city council, which voted last year to end cooperation between local police and ICE, later barred any city official from colluding with ICE in any capacity. Schaaf had said she was prepared to go to jail to defy Trump’s crackdown on immigrants—referring to the president as the “bully in chief.” In the statement warning residents, she said: “My priority is for the well-being and safety of all residents—particularly our most vulnerable—and I know that Oakland is safer when we share information, encourage community awareness, and care for our neighbors.