Hundreds gather for protest against reopening FCI Dublin as ICE detention center

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Chanting, cheering and honking could be heard from blocks away at the intersection of Dublin Boulevard and Arnold Road Saturday as hundreds of community members organized by activist groups – and a handful of counter-protesters –  gathered to protest reported plans to reopen and repurpose the scandal-ridden federal women’s prison that was shuttered last year after findings of widespread abuse and mistreatment.

The action came in the wake of reporting from KTVU that the Bureau of Prisons – under new leadership with the current administration – was eying FCI Dublin among other federal prison sites being considered for use by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants as the agency ramps up detention and deportation efforts. 

“As a community in the Bay Area, we don’t want ICE in our backyard,” said attorney Susan Beatty with the California Collaborative for Immigration Justice in a press release from Indivisible East Bay about their ongoing campaign against the reported plan. “When ICE doesn’t have a place to cage people, there are less raids and less arrests. We are saying no, we don’t want ICE detention in our community, and we want ICE out of the Bay Area and out of California.”

A BOP spokesperson did not confirm or deny the report in a comment to the Weekly, but said that the bureau was “assisting ICE by housing detainees and will continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the administration’s policy objectives.”

With former BOP Director Collette Peters out as of Jan. 20, the agency is currently under the leadership of Acting Director William Lothrop, who has become the target of criticism over the purported move from lawmakers as well as new Attorney General Pat Bondi and concerns abound about changes in the bureau’s partnership with ICE and the latter agency’s increasingly aggressive detention and deportation measures – and ongoing troubles in the federal prison system that have been uncovered and highlighted by the investigation and litigation in the FCI Dublin scandal.

According to a letter to Bondi from U.S. senators Richard Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker, Alex Padilla, Peter Welch, Mazie Hirono, and Monte Vista alum Adam Schiff, a memo from the BOP’s correctional programs branch on Feb. 7 stating that employees with the agency would “accept and process all new DHS detainees,” fails to provide appropriate direction and guidance and raises “serious questions.”

“These questions include how to manage interactions between civil immigration detainees and the existing criminally incarcerated population; how the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS will ensure BOP staff receive adequate training and resources to meet the needs of the civil immigrant detainee population; and whether BOP facilities would even be able to meet basic immigration detention standards,” the senators wrote on Feb. 25. 

“Due to BOP already suffering from years of understaffing, inadequate resources, and crumbling infrastructure, the Administration’s decision to revive immigration detention in BOP facilities seriously threatens the safety and well-being of BOP staff, incarcerated individuals, and immigrant detainees,” they continued. 

In addition to the widespread sexual abuse and retaliation findings at FCI Dublin, the dismal conditions leading up to its closure last year also included its aging infrastructure and the associated hazards, including mold and asbestos – a point raised by Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) in a joint letter on Feb. 25, asking for additional information and details on the reported plan by March 5.

The protest came days after a judge granted final approval for a settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit from women incarcerated at FCI Dublin against the BOP that included the first-ever consent decree in the federal prison system. 

“For the first time in BOP history, a consent decree will provide ongoing court oversight across multiple federal women’s prisons,” Beatty, who also represented the plaintiffs in the class action case, said in an announcement following the Feb. 25 ruling.“This agreement acknowledges that the abuses at FCI Dublin were not isolated incidents but part of a nationwide pattern of harm. Survivors fought tirelessly for this victory, and this consent decree gives advocates the tools to ensure enforcement and hold BOP accountable.”

The final approval of the settlement meant rejecting requests from the defendants in that case to postpone the hearing by one month and to reconsider some terms of the $115 million settlement, which had already been agreed to by both sides in December. 

“You don’t get two bites at the apple,” District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in the hearing. “There is always an opportunity to want more after a negotiated settlement, and that’s why we get it in writing, and that’s why we get it signed – so that you cannot go back. It’s a very common occurrence for people to want to renegotiate, but the answer is no, you do not get to do that in this case.”

It remains to be seen whether or not the purported plan to reopen the troubled facility will also be prevented, with no additional details emerging since KTVU’s initial report from a source with the local federal prison worker’s union that ICE officials had visited the site twice the second week of February.

However, the nearly 500 protesters in Dublin – dwarfing the handful of counter-protesters who took to the southwest corner of the intersection – made their opposition to the move clear, as well as their opposition to ongoing ICE operations as supporters honked and cheered while driving by.

“Saturday’s protest is just the beginning of this campaign,” Indivisible East Bay organizers said in their March 3 announcement. “This coalition has vowed to continue the fight until the facility is bulldozed.”

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