Last week, President Trump referred to the mayor of Oakland, Calif., Libby Schaaf, as a “disgrace,” and condemned her for spitting at federal efforts to enforce immigration laws. As a former resident of Oakland, I agree with the president.
I grew up in inner-city Oakland and hated it with a passion. Among other things, I hated the regular breakdown of law and order as well as the city’s casual disregard for the well-being of law-abiding citizens.
Schaaf’s recent rhetoric and actions offer the entire country a glimpse of Oakland’s recurring dysfunction.
In late February, Schaaf warned the public about impending Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids against illegal immigrants in her city. As a result, ICE says 864 criminal aliens eluded the sweep when it took place.
Defending her decision, Schaaf declared that Oakland must fight against the “racist myth” propagated by the Trump administration that immigrants are “dangerous criminals.”
ICE slammed Schaaf’s decision as “reckless” and irresponsible,” while Attorney General Jeff Sessions blasted her for supporting “those who flaunt the law” and validating “illegality.”
Certainly, Oakland is no stranger to crime and illegality. In the past, the city has made news when it ranked at the top of America’s list of most dangerous cities. Now, Schaaf has made it ground zero for defying federal immigration law.
In both cases, the city’s residents are the ones who suffer.
I have seen the tragedies of Oakland with my own eyes. I arrived at age 10 in the mid-1980s with my family. As legal immigrants from Communist China, we did not speak English and lived in impoverished neighborhoods.
During my childhood and adolescence, it was not uncommon for gunshots to ring outside my home. On a regular basis, I heard pounding on the doors of my neighbors, and men yelling, “Police, open up!” Once, my father found a bullet lodged in the side of our house.
All around me, there were storefronts with shattered windows, bridges and tunnels splashed with graffiti, and downtown streets that smelled of urine. Panhandlers aggressively demanded money, and muggings took place in plain sight.
Protection for the law-abiding, however, was often nowhere to be found. It was absent when thieves broke into my house and stole my parents’ hard-earned belongings. It was absent when female teenage hooligans ran up to my father’s car at a stop sign and beat him through the open window, just for laughs. It was absent when criminals robbed my relatives at gunpoint, or severely injured them during muggings.
One would expect the mayor of a city known for its violent crime to support taking criminals off the streets. But when ICE announced that about half of the 150 illegal immigrants detained in its recent raids had criminal convictions, Schaaf scoffed at it as insufficient.
In other words, keeping nearly 1,000 criminal aliens (the 864 who eluded capture plus half of 150 detained) away from the legal residents of Oakland was protection the mayor did not wish to offer.
Additionally, Schaaf believes that being in this country illegally is somehow not an illegal act, and that the federal government has no right to enforce federal immigration laws against illegal immigrants unless they have committed crimes besides their immigration violations.
This absurdity shows the brazen disregard that Schaaf has for America’s rule of law. It is also a slap in the face to those of us who made sacrifices, jumped through bureaucratic hurdles, and waited in line to immigrate to this country legally.
I extracted my family from inner-city Oakland at the first available opportunity. Schaaf offers the latest reminder that we were absolutely right to get the hell out. As Trump has said, she is a disgrace.
Ying Ma (@GZtoGhetto) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is the former deputy director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a pro-Trump super PAC, and the former deputy policy director of the Ben Carson presidential campaign. She is the author of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto.
