ICYMI: Swalwell Championed Sheriff With Ties to ICE

CALIFORNIA — In case you missed it, the Mercury News focused on Eric Swalwell’s desperate attempt to rewrite his own history when it comes to ICE. 

“Eric Swalwell wants voters to think he has been fighting ICE his entire career,” Steyer for Governor Spokesperson Amelia Platt said. “His record says otherwise. The fact is, when it comes to ICE and keeping our communities safe, Swalwell’s record doesn’t match his rhetoric. California voters aren’t buying his rewrite.”

As the Mercury News reported this week, Swalwell was an outspoken supporter of controversial Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern. Ahern didn’t merely tolerate ICE, but has a decade-long history of cooperating with them. In 2017 alone, Ahern's office shared information with ICE nearly 1,000 times, detained 386 inmates for the agency at an all-time high, and handed over non-public data including home addresses, work addresses, and probation check-in schedules.

Ahern’s troubling record goes well beyond immigration. Alameda County voters ultimately voted him out of office after years of controversy. Under his watch, Santa Rita Jail became notorious for dangerous conditions and in-custody deaths, prompting a rash of lawsuits. 

Ahern endorsed Swalwell in 2012. Swalwell returned the favor ten years later when he backed Ahern, a Republican, over an anti-ICE Democratic challenger. Swalwell’s immigration record tells a clear story of political convenience over principle. From voting to praise ICE as masked federal agents operated in Los Angeles, to taking tens of thousands from a surveillance company profiting off Trump’s immigration crackdown, to backing harsh enforcement bills and even missing key votes including protecting vulnerable immigrant children, Swalwell has consistently sided with the very policies he now claims to oppose.

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