It remains unclear whether the Oakland Police Department provided material assistance on August 16 in the detention and potential deportation of an undocumented Oakland resident who may or may not have been named in a warrant and may not have committed any criminal wrongdoing. Oakland Privacy, a community coalition that works to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight, wrote an open letter on the matter to Oakland's elected officials:

It is an issue of grave concern that information provided to the residents of Oakland about HSI activity in the City via mass media was not accurate, and it raises the question as to whether Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick performed any inquiry into the matter, before committing City resources to such an investigation. The City did not fulfill its responsibility to be accurate and transparent. That the inaccurate information was salacious served two destructive purposes. Firstly, it mischaracterized the nature of the HSI operation in an emotionally manipulative way because no one is in favor of the sexual trafficking of juveniles, whether committed by a Guatemalan family living on 27th Street or by OPD officers themselves. Secondly, by disseminating misinformation to the mass media, the City harmed the people living in the home, including those arrested and those not arrested, as their residential address was disclosed on camera by the media attention it generated, and then linked them wrongfully to a heinous crime.

We believe that Chief Kirkpatrick should provide additional information to the City Council at a public hearing, so that residents can better understand the nature of this incident, including what due diligence the Chief performed prior to providing City resources, if any, and whether OPD immigration policy and the city's sanctuary city resolution were complied with.

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