James Schwab has resigned from his job as a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, saying he didn't agree with Trump administration officials' use of "misleading facts" to attack Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf after the mayor issued a warning about an immigration sweep in late February.
"I quit because I didn't want to perpetuate misleading facts," Schwab told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I asked them to change the information. I told them that the information was wrong, they asked me to deflect, and I didn't agree with that. Then I took some time and I quit."
In that four-day sweep through Northern California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers arrested 232 people — but high-level federal officials, including President Trump, said Schaaf was to blame for 864 more people not being arrested. They pointed to her public warning of a pending raid, which she issued on Feb. 24, just as the operation was about to begin.
ICE agents had targeted more than 1,000 people in the sweep. After the raid, a Homeland Security official said it's common for a large-scale immigration sweep to net about a third of its targets, as member station KQED reports.
Trump called what Schaaf did "a disgrace," saying her warning was the sole reason that hundreds of people escaped arrest. His remarks amplified attacks by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and acting ICE Director Thomas D. Homan. Their claims were questioned by critics — and now by Schwab, a veteran public affairs officer who had worked at the Defense Department and NASA.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...e-of-misleading-facts-to-discuss-calif-arrest
"I quit because I didn't want to perpetuate misleading facts," Schwab told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I asked them to change the information. I told them that the information was wrong, they asked me to deflect, and I didn't agree with that. Then I took some time and I quit."
In that four-day sweep through Northern California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers arrested 232 people — but high-level federal officials, including President Trump, said Schaaf was to blame for 864 more people not being arrested. They pointed to her public warning of a pending raid, which she issued on Feb. 24, just as the operation was about to begin.
ICE agents had targeted more than 1,000 people in the sweep. After the raid, a Homeland Security official said it's common for a large-scale immigration sweep to net about a third of its targets, as member station KQED reports.
Trump called what Schaaf did "a disgrace," saying her warning was the sole reason that hundreds of people escaped arrest. His remarks amplified attacks by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and acting ICE Director Thomas D. Homan. Their claims were questioned by critics — and now by Schwab, a veteran public affairs officer who had worked at the Defense Department and NASA.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...e-of-misleading-facts-to-discuss-calif-arrest