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A group of residents and community members showed up to a recent Pleasanton City Council meeting with one request for their local elected leaders: discuss a resolution at a later date that would formally oppose any potential plans to convert a shuttered prison in Dublin into an immigration detention center.
The request came just weeks after the federal Bureau of Prisons issued a new report for the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, which many speculate could be the first step in the process to repurpose the facility as a detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“An ICE facility does not reflect the values of Pleasanton or the Tri-Valley,” Pleasanton resident Isabel Gomez said during the May 19 City Council meeting.
Despite the pleas from those residents, the council majority did not support advancing on the topic any time soon. The only two members of the dais who did voice their support for doing so were councilmembers Jeff Nibert and Julie Testa.
“I felt very disappointed that only two of us would even want to talk about a resolution,” Nibert told the Weekly.
Among the trio who did not back agendizing the subject for a future meeting, Pleasanton Mayor Jack Balch said that while he respects all of those who voiced their concerns, he wants to focus on the issues the council can control locally.
“At the local level, the City Council must constantly balance a wide range of critical priorities while working within limited staff time, agenda capacity and city resources,” Balch told the Weekly. “Determining which issues are most appropriate for formal council action can be challenging, particularly when they may fall outside the city’s direct jurisdiction or operational responsibilities.”
“My understanding is that in this case, both Alameda County and the City of Dublin have already taken action on the matter,” he added. “I was not confident that an additional resolution from Pleasanton at this time would materially change the situation or be the best use of council and staff resources compared to other pressing local issues currently facing our community.”
FCI Dublin was a low-security women’s prison that closed in 2024 due to prison guards sexually abusing incarcerated women, infrastructure issues and other documented issues.
Last year, reports began emerging that President Donald Trump’s administration was considering reopening the facility as a detention center for immigrants, which prompted local leaders at the city of Dublin and Alameda County to publicly denounce those considerations.
Dublin’s City Council did so through a resolution it passed last December and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors followed suit this past March with a resolution introduced by District 1 Supervisor David Haubert.
Even though William K. Marshall III, director of the federal Bureau of Prisons told Dublin City Manager Colleen Tribby in a Nov. 28, 2025 letter that there was “no indication that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement will utilize the facility and BOP has no plans to reopen the facility”, a new report has residents concerned that might not be the case.
The report in question is a 2,731-page draft environmental impact report that goes over all of the issues at the site, including a leaking sewage system, contamination from many different sources and all the other serious health hazards found at the former prison.
But, according to residents and other advocates, what the report doesn’t say is that with its recommendation to permanently deactivate and close the prison, comes a caveat that the facility could be handed over to the U.S. General Services Administration, a federal agency that transfers assets from one agency to another.
And given the national scrutiny other federal agencies like ICE have been facing over the past year, including alleged violent immigration enforcement tactics and inhumane treatment at detention centers, many do not want to see these agencies in the Tri-Valley.
“Tragically there is overwhelming evidence that ICE and DHS far too often operate outside the law, violate due process and other constitutional rights, and use inhuman or even violent treatment against detainees,” Pleasanton resident Tony Shuga told his city’s council during non-agenda comment on May 19.
That’s why Shuga and other residents asked the council to follow suit of Dublin and the county’s resolutions and take some sort of action to oppose those plans, if they do end up coming later down the road.
“They’re waiting for their fellow Tri-Valley cities to do the same,” resident Dan Morley said. “So I urge you to consider going on the record and formally opposing immigration detention in our community.”
Pleasanton resident Gerry Gire also spoke in support of such a resolution because she knows there is a possibility that the federal government could convert the site into an immigration detention center, even if it’s not saying it will do so outright.
“I fear the site could be transferred and repurposed quickly despite its troubling history and unresolved safety issues,” Gire said.
She also noted how interconnected the entire Tri-Valley has become over the years and how something like a detention center in Dublin will affect the greater Tri-Valley region. In particular, she pointed out that the BOP report notes how the former prison shares wastewater services connected through the Dublin San Ramon Services District infrastructure housed in Pleasanton.
“That may seem minor, but it reflects a larger truth: Our communities are deeply interconnected,” Gire said. “What happens there does not stay there.”
Despite Nibert’s attempt to get the issue placed on a future council agenda, it did not get enough support from at least three others on May 19, as required — Testa was the only one who voiced her support.
“If the negative impacts to Pleasanton of an ICE detention center aren’t enough to make the Council oppose it, then at least our community values and the way ICE abuses and neglects people should be,” Nibert told the Weekly.
“Plenty of our residents were born in other countries,” he added. “We know ICE doesn’t care who they detain, and a study shows our immigrant neighbors are more likely to be targeted with an ICE facility next door. I thank our residents who cared enough to bring this issue to the City Council.”
Testa also told the Weekly she supports a resolution to oppose the use of the former federal prison as a detention center and said Pleasanton should stand with other Tri-Valley communities against this issue.
“Our Tri-Valley communities are strongest when we lead with dignity, accountability, compassion and respect for human rights,” Testa said.
Councilmember Craig Eicher echoed a similar sentiment to the mayor, saying that as Pleasanton continues to face financial challenges — and the issue of finding a replacement for outgoing City Manager Gerry Beaudin — he has tried to focus on city priorities that require his and the council’s full attention.
However, he also said that due to the documented “substandard conditions at the facility”, he also believes the most appropriate path forward for FCI Dublin is to “raze the existing prison rather to have it transitioned into another holding facility”.
“My focus remains on ensuring that Pleasanton directs its energy and resources toward the serious local work ahead of us,” Eicher said. “I remain committed to representing our community with transparency, accountability, and a clear focus on the issues that matter most to Pleasanton.”
Still, for many who spoke at that May 19 meeting, the Pleasanton council’s inaction might not sit right with them.
“(Immigration agencies) should be opposed by any reasonable means, including denial of resources such as detention facilities, until ICE and DHS are reformed and demonstrate a consistent change in practice,” Shuga said.
“Do we want our children and grandchildren to know someday that their government was severely mistreating hundreds of people — guilty or innocent, citizens or noncitizens — a few miles down the road from here and we, their elders, did not do our best to stop it,” he added.
