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Federal officials confirmed that they launched a big immigration enforcement action this week in Northern California.

Federal officials confirmed that they launched a big immigration enforcement action this week in Northern California.

Photo: LM Otero/AP

FILE – In this Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018, file photo, Diana Colin, right, with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights shouts as the group from California protests outside the office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, on Capitol Hill in Washington, in favor of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On Monday, Feb. 26, 2018, a federal judge issued a sweeping ban on the U.S. government revoking deportation protection of immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. less

Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP

Federal officials said Tuesday they arrested more than 150 undocumented immigrants in a Northern California sweep aimed at countering local sanctuary laws, while suggesting Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s decision to alert the public to the secret operation may have allowed some targets to elude capture.

Since Sunday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have fanned out from the Central Valley to the far northern reaches of the state, knocking on doors, detaining people and prompting alarm from community activists and some Democratic politicians who oppose President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Agency officials, who had remained silent about the operation for three days, said in a written statement that they arrested people in cities including San Francisco, Bay Point, Sacramento and Stockton, and that half of those arrested had criminal convictions, including for violent crimes.

The operation was named Keep Safe. Officials did not say whether the first letters of the operation were intended as a reference to Kate Steinle, the San Francisco woman shot dead on a bay pier in July 2015 by a homeless undocumented immigrant. ICE also did not say whether the sweep was over.

“Sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Oakland shield dangerous criminal aliens from federal law enforcement at the expense of public safety,” said Thomas Homan, the acting director of ICE. “Because these jurisdictions prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of a jail, they also force ICE officers to make more arrests out in the community, which poses increased risks for law enforcement and the public.”

Mayor Schaaf said she had multiple sources confirming that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are planning to conduct raids this week. (Feb. 25)

Media: Associated Press

Homan slammed Schaaf, who on Saturday night released an unprecedented warning that ICE was about to begin arresting people. Schaaf said she issued the alert after receiving confidential tips from “credible sources,” and conferring with attorneys to make sure she wasn’t opening herself up to federal prosecution.

The mayor’s move endangered ICE officers and alerted their targets, Homan asserted, “making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda.” He said 864 “criminal aliens and public safety threats remain at large in the community, and I have to believe that some of them were able to elude us thanks to the mayor’s irresponsible decision.”

Fox News, which was given a ride-along with ICE officers during the operation, reported that agency officials were asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether Schaaf broke any laws.

In a statement Tuesday night, Schaaf stood by her decision to go public.

“My statement on Saturday was meant to give all residents time to learn their rights and know their legal options. It was my intention that one mother, or one father, would use the information to help keep their family together,” the mayor said. “I do not regret sharing this information. It is Oakland’s legal right to be a sanctuary city and we have not broken any laws. We believe our community is safer when families stay together.”

San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell released a statement saying that the city won’t “cower” as the “administration pursues their political plan of haphazardly punishing sanctuary cities.”

“We stand with our hardworking, law-abiding immigrant neighbors and we are unified in our response to the divisive rhetoric of this president.”

The Chronicle reported in January that federal officials were planning the Northern California operation. The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed frustration at sanctuary laws in the state, which restrict cooperation between local authorities and ICE in an effort to convince undocumented immigrants they don’t need to live in the shadows.

Trump seized upon the killing of Steinle to argue that sanctuary policies are dangerous. The undocumented immigrant shooter, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, had previously been released from San Francisco County Jail under the city’s sanctuary ordinance, even though immigration officers had asked that he be turned over for a sixth deportation.

This week’s sweep is the second to target California since a statewide sanctuary law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, SB54, went into effect in January. The legislation, among other things, limits the circumstances in which jails across the state can turn over undocumented inmates to ICE and forbids police from arresting people on immigration warrants.

Earlier this month, ICE arrested more than 200 immigrants suspected of being undocumented in an operation in Los Angeles. Federal agents also told 122 businesses there that they would be checking whether their employees were authorized to work. ICE launched a similar action in Northern California in January, visiting 77 businesses.

“If you take all of the administration’s statements in context … it suggests that this is highly politically motivated and meant to send a message to California,” said Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor and immigration expert at Santa Clara University School of Law. The message, he said, is that “not cooperating with federal immigration authorities will result in aggressive immigration enforcement.”

The ACLU of Northern California said Tuesday that reports from rapid-response networks over the previous three days suggested “that ICE enforcement is terrorizing communities of color. The targeting of cities and states that refuse to use their limited resources to fuel the Trump administration’s deportation machine is cruel and inhumane.”

ICE said the agency “focuses its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety, and border security.” But officials also said ICE “no longer exempts classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

Among those arrested this week, ICE said in a statement, was a 38-year-old “documented Sureño gang member” with four previous deportations to Mexico and multiple criminal convictions, including for assault with a deadly weapon.

In Bay Point, officials said, officers arrested a man with eight past deportations and a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, and in Stockton they arrested a man with a conviction for committing lewd acts on a child. ICE did not release a full list of those arrested.

The Northern California sweep began three days after Trump threatened to remove ICE officers from the state, saying, “In two months they’d be begging for us to come back.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said the Department of Homeland Security was working with state and local elections officials to prevent attacks on electoral systems, which were wider than initially thought during the 2016 vote. She also cited a program to provide $40 million to counter Russian and Chinese propaganda, though she failed to mention that the money was delivered to the State Department only after months of delays and withering criticism from Republicans in Congress.

As for Admiral Rogers, “nobody is denying him the authority,” Ms. Sanders said before blaming the Obama administration, noting that the Russian campaign began on its watch.

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Asked during the earlier hearing whether he had the authority and the ability to disrupt the Russian attacks “where they originate,” Admiral Rogers replied, “I don’t have the day-to-day authority to do that.”

“So you would need, basically, to be directed by the president,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

“Have you been directed to do so?” Mr. Reed added.

“No, I have not,” Admiral Rogers said.

But, Admiral Rogers insisted, he is using the authorities already at his disposal “to begin some specific work.” He would not give details in the open hearing because the work was classified, he said.

Exactly what capabilities the United States has to deter Russian meddling are highly classified and shrouded by layers of secrecy. But the N.S.A. is known to have developed dangerous cyberweapons. A number have leaked out in the past few years, providing hackers with the tools they needed to infect millions of computers around the world, crippling hospitals, factories and businesses.

But Mr. Rogers said on Tuesday that “it’s probably fair to say that we have not opted to engage in some of the same behaviors that we are seeing, if I could just keep it at that.”

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The court’s decision not to hear the appeal could also relieve the immediate political pressure on lawmakers to permanently address the status of those immigrants, or to deal with the additional one million Dreamers who had never signed up for the DACA program. They remain at risk of deportation if immigration agents find them.

Even as he ended the DACA program, Mr. Trump had called upon Congress to give the young immigrants legal status — and an eventual path to citizenship — before the program was scheduled to expire March 5.

But that proposal has been bogged down in partisan gridlock as members of Congress argue about broader changes to the United States’ immigration system that the president and his conservative allies in Congress have demanded as part of any deal to address the future of the young immigrants.

This month, senators failed to reach consensus in a series of votes on bills to address the Dreamers and other immigration issues. A bipartisan coalition in the Senate roundly rejected a measure backed by Mr. Trump that would have all but ended the family-based migration system that has been in place for decades. A separate bipartisan measure that would have legalized the Dreamers and allocated $25 billion for a wall on the border with Mexico fell six votes short of the 60 needed to proceed to a final vote.

Now, the court’s action is likely to lessen the urgency on Capitol Hill over the issue, making it even more probable that Congress will take no action as the legal process plays out.

As a possible fallback plan after the Senate’s failure this month, lawmakers could negotiate a short-term patch that would continue the DACA program for a few years, perhaps in exchange for partial funding of Mr. Trump’s wall. Such a deal could be tucked into a broad spending bill that lawmakers must approve by March 23, when government funding is set to expire.

But the court’s move could undercut any momentum to push for even a very narrow deal in the next few weeks, and there has been little evidence of progress toward any kind of bipartisan pact that would be acceptable to Mr. Trump. House Republican leaders still appear focused on a hard-line conservative immigration bill that would be a nonstarter in the Senate.

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“While the court’s decision appears to have pushed this deadline beyond March, House Republicans are actively working toward a solution,” said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly condemned Democrats in recent days, accusing them of not caring about the young immigrants. In one recent Twitter post, he said Republicans “stand ready to make a deal” to protect the Dreamers from deportation.

But Democrats, and some Republicans, accuse Mr. Trump and his hard-line conservative White House advisers of using the Dreamers as leverage for changes to the immigration system that conservative, anti-immigrant activists have long sought.

The case at the Supreme Court was brought in California by five sets of plaintiffs. They included four states — California, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota — and Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California. As secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, Ms. Napolitano signed the document that established the program in 2012.

In January, Judge William H. Alsup of the Federal District Court in San Francisco ruled that the administration had abused its discretion and had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in rescinding the program. Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn issued a similar ruling this month.

The judges acknowledged that presidents have broad powers to alter the policies of earlier administrations. But they said the Trump administration’s justifications for rescinding the program did not withstand scrutiny.

The administration had argued that the program was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch, relying on a ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, concerning a related program. The Supreme Court deadlocked, 4 to 4, in an appeal of that ruling.

The judges said the two programs differed in important ways, undermining the administration’s legal analysis. They noted, too, that Mr. Trump had issued conflicting statements about the DACA program.

Both judges issued nationwide injunctions ordering the administration to retain major elements of the program while the cases moved forward. Such nationwide injunctions from judges in individual cases, which have been used to block executive actions in both the Obama and Trump administrations, have been the subject of much commentary and criticism.

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The administration appealed Judge Alsup’s ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, and that court put the appeal on a fast track. In an unusual move, the administration also asked the Supreme Court to grant immediate review, leapfrogging the appeals court.

That procedure, called “certiorari before judgment,” is used rarely, typically in cases involving national crises like President Harry S. Truman’s seizure of the steel industry and President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to turn over tape recordings to a special prosecutor.

In a statement, the Justice Department said it would continue to make its legal arguments as the case proceeded.

“While we were hopeful for a different outcome, the Supreme Court very rarely grants certiorari before judgment, though in our view, it was warranted for the extraordinary injunction requiring the Department of Homeland Security to maintain DACA,” said Devin M. O’Malley, a spokesman for the department. “We will continue to defend D.H.S.’s lawful authority to wind down DACA in an orderly manner.”

Lawyers for the challengers expressed satisfaction with Monday’s developments.

“We are pleased that the Supreme Court is allowing the normal appellate process to run its course,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who represents people affected by the program. “DACA is a lawful and important program that protects young people who came to this country as children and who know this country as their only home.”

In a brief urging the Supreme Court to deny review, lawyers for the University of California wrote that “it has been nearly 30 years since the court granted certiorari before judgment without the benefit of a court of appeals ruling on the question presented.”

In a second brief, lawyers for the four states wrote that no national emergency warranted use of the unusual procedure.

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“Since 2012, the DACA program has allowed hundreds of thousands of young people to receive deferred action, work authorization and other benefits,” they wrote. “The district court’s preliminary injunction only partially and temporarily restores the situation that existed prior to petitioners’ abrupt decision to terminate the program — and only for individuals who had already received deferred action under DACA.”

“Petitioners are entitled to a prompt appeal,” the brief said, “but there is no imminent deadline posing a critical threat to the public interest of the sort that might justify bypassing the normal channels for that review.”

In the administration’s brief, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco told the justices that “an ongoing violation of federal law being committed by nearly 700,000 aliens” required the Supreme Court to act. But he did not ask the court to stay Judge Alsup’s injunction while the case moved forward. Mr. Francisco wrote that an immediate stay would interfere with the administration’s goal of an “orderly wind-down” of the program.

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“So @Delta, you REALLY want 5 million #NRA members like me, who have NEVER committed a mass shooting, to fly on your competition? Done,” tweeted one member, Jessie Jane Duff, earning more than 4,000 retweets. “Who ever thought this was a great PR campaign idea should be fired.”