Federal Enforcement Is Here Because Oakland Leadership Failed

BY: THE rethink Oakland Team

- Federal action did not appear out of nowhere — it filled the void left by failed leadership.

News/Opinion

Federal immigration agents are arriving in the Bay Area this week in what multiple reports describe as a major enforcement operation. The immediate response from San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee was predictable — condemn the operation, frame it as an attack on Bay Area values, and insist that federal action is the problem. But the more honest reading is simpler: federal enforcement is stepping in because local leadership has refused to enforce the law themselves.

For years, Oakland and San Francisco officials have built their politics around symbolism instead of outcomes. Public safety was treated as a political liability, not a basic obligation. The federal government does not send hundreds of agents into a region that is functioning — it intervenes where dysfunction has been allowed to deepen.

And while the loudest critics are calling this operation “cruel,” working people in Oakland know a different reality. Residents in East Oakland, West Oakland, and neighborhoods in the city like the Mission are the ones living with the consequences of non-enforcement — not the activists, not the city hall staffers, not the donors, not the commentators. Enforcement is not cruelty. Neglect is. Neglect is what leaves families afraid to walk home, businesses afraid to stay open, and entire neighborhoods left to absorb the fallout of decisions made by leaders who never live with the cost.

Mayor Lurie and Mayor Lee are not angry because peaceful communities are at risk — they are angry because federal intervention exposes their failure. Governor Gavin Newsom joined them in attack mode, calling the federal action part of an “authoritarian playbook” designed to provoke chaos and violence, as though enforcement — not their own inaction — is the source of disorder in California. If they and their predecessors had delivered order, accountability, and safety, there would be no vacuum to fill. Their outrage is not moral — it is defensive.

Critics are already repeating familiar lines — but they collapse under further scrutiny.

“This is intimidation, not safety.”
Fear already exists — but not for offenders. Fear exists for the residents who ride buses at night, who close their shops early because of theft, who hesitate before walking to their car. Enforcement does not create fear — it transfers fear back to those who break the law.

“Federal agents are acting unlawfully.”
Immigration enforcement is federal law, upheld by federal courts. Calling law enforcement “fascism” is not an argument — it is a strategy to delegitimize the rule of law itself.

“This targets immigrants, not criminals.”
Federal operations do not randomly sweep working-class families. They prioritize individuals with criminal records, prior deportation orders, or known gang affiliations. Erasing that distinction is dishonest.

“This will erode community trust.”
Trust was not lost because of enforcement — it was lost because residents watched government excuse chaos for years. People lose trust when leaders refuse to protect them, not when someone finally does.

“This is meant to provoke chaos.” (Governor Newsom’s claim)
The governor warns that enforcement will invite vandalism and violence, but the chaos is already here — under his watch, not Washington’s. It is not enforcement that provokes instability, it is the vacuum created when leaders refuse to enforce the law.

If this operation produces even a fraction of the safety local leaders failed to deliver, it will show that order is still possible when someone is willing to enforce it. That alone is a reason for hope.

But hope is not automatic. A turning point only becomes a turning point if residents refuse to fall back into silence when the headlines fade. If The Town wants better, its people must begin demanding better — publicly, loudly, and without apology.

Federal agents leaving will not fix Oakland. New laws will not fix Oakland. Only pressure from residents — sustained and unignorable — will force leadership to act before outsiders have to intervene again.  If Oakland wants outsiders gone, Oakland’s leaders must start protecting this community with the same urgency outsiders are showing now — because the people who live here deserve that protection.

Oakland is not beyond repair — but it will not fix itself. Decline is not destiny unless we agree to live with it. If The Town is going to recover, it will be because its residents finally refused to accept excuses, refused to stay quiet, and forced leadership to deliver results instead of rhetoric.

No more pretending. No more excuses.

A Love Letter to The Town

By: The Rethink Oakland Team

- Why refusing to stay silent is the only honest form of loyalty.

There is a kind of heartbreak only someone who has lived inside Oakland can understand, the heartbreak of loving a Town that asks so much of its people and gives so little back in return. For most people in this Town, daily life has become an uphill climb.

And the heartbreak is not poetic. You see it in the boarded up windows, the empty storefronts, the security gates around places that used to feel open, and in the silence where there used to be noise. Even the teams that once carried the soul of this Town — the Warriors, the Raiders, and the A’s — chose to leave, not because Oakland stopped caring, but because city leadership stopped leading, leadership that chooses ideology over pragmatism.

Oakland has always had its share of struggle. Poverty, crime, and dysfunction are not new here. But what is different now is that the excuses no longer cover the truth. The consequences are out in the open and ordinary residents live with them every day.

Crime is no longer a headline — it is something we live around.
Homelessness is not a “challenge” — it is collapse in plain view.
Businesses are not quietly relocating — they are leaving to survive.
City leadership is not merely imperfect — it is insulated from consequence.
And worst of all, dissent is not engaged — it is socially excommunicated.

Too many who claim to love this Town are more loyal to a narrative than to the people living with its consequences. Decline is defended not because it protects Oaklanders, but because it protects identities, institutions, and egos built on the illusion that failure is proof of virtue.

I am not writing this out of resentment for Oakland, but because real love does not ignore what is broken. Real love criticizes not to destroy but to repair. To love this Town is to want the people who live here to prosper, not to survive under lowered expectations in the name of someone else’s ideology.

Rethink Oakland exists for those who already feel this, for the residents who see what is happening, who are done pretending, and who still believe The Town is worth salvaging. This is for the ones who know something is wrong and refuse to silence their own common sense.

I refuse to give up on The Town, and I am asking others who feel the same to stop staying silent. If we care about Oakland, we cannot keep pretending. The Town deserves better, and so do the people who call it home.