3 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Keep ICE out of Dublin': Hundreds protest prospect of immigrant detention centers
Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday at a park in Dublin to oppose the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement reopening the nearby federal prison into an immigrant detention center.
Drivers passing by the family-friendly protest at Don Biddle Community Park honked their horns in support of the demonstrators holding signs that read, 'Keep ICE out of Dublin.' There were designated art tables where children could color, and attendees could pick up screen-printed posters that read, 'Hands off our immigrant neighbors.'
The protest was organized by Tsuru for Solidarity, ICE Out of Dublin Coalition, several labor unions and other organizations. Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American social justice advocacy group that seeks to end detention sites, organized the rally in solidarity with immigrant communities and to protest detention centers from opening in the Bay Area, specifically the scandal-plagued former women's prison in Dublin that shuttered last year.
FCI Dublin made national headlines in 2023 after incarcerated people filed a class-action lawsuit alleging rampant sexual abuse by many of the prison guards. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons closed FCI Dublin in early December, citing poor facility conditions and staffing shortages. Later that month, the bureau announced that it will pay $115 million to 103 women who were sexually abused — the largest monetary settlement in the bureau's history, according to representatives of the prisoners.
Rumors of potentially reopening the site as an immigrant detention center began after ICE officials toured the facility in February. A bureau spokesperson told the Chronicle last week that 'there are no plans to reopen it.'
Still, Bay Area residents have been on edge about the possibility of the prison reopening as a detention center, prompting demonstrators to take to the streets to protest.
Stacy Suh, program director at Detention Watch Network and one of the speakers at Saturday's rally, told the crowd that immigrant women were targeted at FCI Dublin because of their immigration status.
'We do not want ICE in our backyard, not in Dublin, not in the Bay Area, and not anywhere,' Suh told the cheering crowd.
'Mass detention and deportation mean more and more and more Black and brown people are racially profiled because of the color of their skin,' Suh added.
Marissa Seko, of the Oakland-based Family Violence Law Center, said she has worked with survivors of the prison for 15 years. The prison's conditions described by the survivors reminded Seko, a Japanese American, of the conditions her grandmother endured while she was detained at an internment camp in Arizona.
Hundreds of thousands people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 during World War II. In March, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to detain Venezuelans.
'As a kid, my grandma and my great aunt told me stories about what it was like losing everything, how desolate, dusty and dirty the camp was,' Seko said. 'Supporting the survivors of FCI Dublin … reminded me of what my family endured during the internment.'
'The prison was closed for good reason and should remain closed,' she added.
Sharon Osterweil of Oakland said she attended the rally because, as someone of Jewish descent, 'we have a responsibility to stand up whenever any group is facing detention, concentration camps, kidnappings the way that we're seeing right now.'
'This is the time when elected officials need to stand up and actually represent people who elected them, which means not allowing ICE to expand, let alone keep operating the way they are,' she said.
