War of words: ICE compares Schaaf to ‘gang lookout’; Schaaf decries ‘racist’ crackdown
March 1, 2018 by admin
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Federal officials and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf traded bitter accusations Wednesday over Schaaf’s decision to alert the public about a multiday Northern California immigration sweep that the Trump administration launched to counter local sanctuary laws.
Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, compared the mayor’s warning on Saturday night — hours before ICE agents began knocking on doors and making arrests — to a “gang lookout yelling ‘police’” in an appearance on Fox News.
Schaaf responded, in a news conference and on radio, by assailing the administration’s immigration crackdown as racist.
The war of words marked what could be a new low in the relationship between federal officials frustrated with sanctuary policies and liberal California leaders who have opposed President Trump’s tightening of immigration and his assertions that undocumented people bring danger to the country.
Schaaf answers questions about her decision to alert the community about potential ICE activity
Media: Wendy Lee
While ICE arrested more than 150 undocumented immigrants in the first three days of this week’s operation, Homan said, “There’s 800 that we are unable to locate because of that warning, so that community is a lot less safe than it would have been.”
Schaaf’s warning “is no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to the entire community,” Homan said. “I’ll say this to the mayor and every other politician that wants to vilify the men and women of ICE — we are not going away, we are going to keep enforcing the law.”
Schaaf made clear she wasn’t backing down either. Speaking in her office, the mayor said she stood by her decision to reveal an operation she learned about from confidential “credible sources.”
“I hope we take this moment to recognize that we have to fight against the racist myth that the Trump administration is trying to perpetuate — that immigrants are dangerous criminals,” Schaaf said. “There is nothing further from the truth. This is racist and it is false. Ample evidence shows that American-born citizens are actually more likely to commit crimes than immigrants.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Wednesday he was gathering more information on this week’s ICE operation while encouraging immigrants, employers and others to know their rights.
“It’s becoming sadly clearer that ICE is losing its focus on immigration enforcement,” Becerra said. “Rather than focus on people who are dangerous criminals, we hear ICE may be terrorizing communities, including family members who are citizens.”
ICE said Tuesday that roughly half of those arrested since Sunday in Northern California had criminal convictions, including for violent offenses including assault with a deadly weapon. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, of San Francisco, seized upon that statistic to criticize the sweep, called Operation Keep Safe.
“This raid was intended solely to terrorize innocent immigrant families and instill fear in the hearts of our communities,” Pelosi said, “not to keep Americans safe.”
In downtown San Francisco, hundreds of protesters gathered Wednesday afternoon outside ICE’s Northern California headquarters, chanting slogans and carrying signs that read “ICE out of SF” and “Undocumented and unafraid.” San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell was among local politicians who attended the event to support advocates.
“It’s ridiculous to have all these families broken apart,” said Maribel Rodriguez, a 33-year-old San Francisco resident who listened to the speeches outside the ICE building on Sansome Street. “At the end of the day, family unity is what really matters, and it’s heartbreaking to see families being taken apart.”
The immigration law firm Pangea Legal Services said ICE had put “unnecessary barriers” between attorneys and those arrested, including not allowing lawyers to pass information to detainees who may want representation. Attorneys said people arrested were sent to a processing center in Stockton, even though individuals would typically be processed in San Francisco.
San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi also sent a letter to ICE on Wednesday demanding access to detainees. ICE officials did not immediately comment on the assertions by defense attorneys.
The Chronicle reported in January that federal officials were planning the operation. The Trump administration has repeatedly taken aim at sanctuary laws in California, which restrict cooperation between local authorities and ICE in an effort to convince undocumented immigrants they don’t need to live in the shadows.
Homan has said that because of sanctuary laws, the agency would double down in the state and would have “no choice but to conduct at-large arrests” due to the agency’s inability to pick up individuals with criminal records from local jails.
He has warned that ICE officers will inevitably come across other undocumented immigrants in the course of targeted actions and make what are known as collateral arrests. Arrests of undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions have risen sharply under the Trump administration.
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Walmart and Dick’s Raise Minimum Age for Gun Buyers to 21
March 1, 2018 by admin
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A day earlier, President Trump met at the White House with a bipartisan group of lawmakers and called for a series of gun control measures, some of which the National Rifle Association has vigorously opposed.
Walmart and Dick’s acted after a number of major companies moved last week to dissociate themselves from the N.R.A. Hertz car rental, MetLife insurance and Delta Air Lines, among others, publicly ended their relationships with the organization.
In a news release late Wednesday, Walmart noted that in 2015 it discontinued the sale of high-powered rifles, including AR-15-style weapons, in its stores in the United States. But at the time, Walmart sidestepped any controversy involving gun politics, attributing its decision to lower customer demand for the military-style rifles.
This time, Walmart directly linked its action to the shooting in Florida, saying, “In light of recent events, we’ve taken an opportunity to review our policy on firearm sales.”
Top Walmart executives made the decision and then informed the board, a company spokesman said.
Walmart sells guns in roughly half of its nearly 4,000 supercenters, the company said, but the sheer scale of its customer base gives its decision significant heft. Every week, more than 150 million people shop at Walmarts around the country.
Dick’s decision was announced by Edward Stack, the 63-year-old chief executive whose father founded the store in 1948. Mr. Stack made clear that he was deliberately steering his company directly into the storm over gun reform.
“When we saw what happened in Parkland, we were so disturbed and upset,” Mr. Stack said in an interview. “We love these kids and their rallying cry, ‘Enough is enough.’ It got to us.”
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He added, “We’re going to take a stand and step up and tell people our view and, hopefully, bring people along into the conversation.”
The decision drew immediate — and passionate — reaction on social media. By midday, the number of Twitter messages containing Dick’s name had jumped 12,000 percent from the average over the previous 10 days, according to Sprout Social, a social media management, advocacy and analytics software platform.
Graphic
With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops
When a gunman walked into a Florida school on Feb. 14, his rifle let him fire in much the same way that many American soldiers and Marines would fire M16 and M4 rifles in combat.
About 79 percent of the tweets had a positive sentiment, Sprout Social said, including supportive messages from Hollywood actors and actresses.
But the company’s critics posted their plans to no longer shop at the retailer, some closing their tweets with “#boycott.”
Investors did not appear to worry about a backlash, as Dick’s stock spent much of Wednesday trading about 1.8 percent higher before finishing up 0.69 percent.
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Mr. Stack said Dick’s hoped to move the conversation beyond social media and into the political realm. As part of its stance, the company is calling on elected officials to pass what it called “common sense gun reform”: raising the minimum age to buy guns to 21, banning assault-type weapons and so-called bump stocks, and conducting broader background checks that include mental-health information and previous interactions with law enforcement.
This is not the first time that Dick’s has made changes in response to a school massacre. In 2012, after a gunman killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dick’s removed assault-style rifles from its main stores. But a few months later, the company began carrying the firearms at its outdoor and hunting retail chain, Field Stream.
As of Wednesday morning, the company said, AR-15-style and other semiautomatic rifles will no longer be sold in its 35 Field Stream stores or on its websites. And this time, Mr. Stack added, the changes will be permanent.
Mr. Stack said the retailer had begun scouring its purchase records shortly after the identity of the suspected Parkland killer, Nikolas Cruz, became known. The company soon discovered that it had legally sold a gun to Mr. Cruz in November, though it was not the type used in the school shooting.
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“But it came to us that we could have been a part of this story,” Mr. Stack said. “We said, ‘We don’t want to be a part of this any longer.’”
That response raised rounds of discussions with the company’s top executives and its directors, all of whom backed the decision to take a stand, Mr. Stack said.
He said Dick’s remained a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and would continue to sell a variety of sport and hunting firearms. Although he has never been a member of the N.R.A., Mr. Stack said, he is a gun owner and enjoys trapshooting.
But when it comes to selling guns to individuals under 21 or stocking assault-style rifles, Mr. Stack said, his company is done. “We don’t want to be a part of a mass shooting,” he said.
The company said that it had not decided what to do with ts inventory of assault-style rifles but that they would not be sold in the marketplace.
Legal experts said they saw no likely challenges to Dick’s decision to stop selling assault-style rifles. But the decision to stop selling weapons to anyone under 21, however, could be tested in court.
Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the School of Law of the University of California, Los Angeles, said Dick’s could be challenged in lawsuits claiming a violation of laws that bar age discrimination. Although federal civil rights laws do not apply, some states, including New York, prohibit businesses from denying goods and services on the basis of age.
“Don’t be surprised if an aggressive attorney general of a gun-friendly state brings an age-discrimination claim against Dick’s,” Professor Winkler wrote in an email response to questions.
The company said that it believed its decision was in accordance with the law and that it was instituting the policy immediately.
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