Roughly three dozen people spoke Tuesday night in favor of the resolution, with just one speaker opposed. One of those who spoke was Liz Schmitt, 85, a member of the local chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots progressive network working to combat President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“I recognize it’s federal property and the city has absolutely no legal authority, but public outcry can go a long way,” she said. “The council listened to the residents and did what the residents asked, and I’m very proud of that.”
The vote followed a meeting last month where scores of community members urged the council to take a more public stance against turning the prison into an ICE detention facility.
According to Josey, city staffers have written to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which owns the property, and to the Department of Homeland Security, urging them not to reopen the FCI Dublin site. She said the council is also in communication with Dublin’s state and federal representatives.
“While it is true that we do not have any direct influence or any direct control, we believe that we can make our feelings known,” Josey said.
Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell and Mark DeSaulnier, who represent Dublin in Congress, have both spoken out against turning the prison into an ICE facility.
Even before the Trump administration began vastly ramping up immigration enforcement, ICE was seeking additional detention space in California and elsewhere in the Western U.S. Last year, the agency issued a request for information about potential facilities within a two-hour drive of its San Francisco field office. Today, the closest ICE lockup is nearly 300 miles away.
A new ICE facility opened in late August in the Kern County town of California City. That facility, which is already facing allegations of substandard conditions, is privately run, as are the other six ICE detention centers in California.
Community activists fear a planned transfer of FCI Dublin out of the ownership of the Federal Bureau of Prisons could be the first step in handing the property over to ICE or a private prison company, which could run it as an immigration detention center.
In a Dec. 4 letter to Dublin officials, the BOP said it is planning to turn the Dublin facility over to the U.S. General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, because the property is too expensive to keep up.
“The BOP has determined that the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) located in Dublin, California (FCI Dublin), where most of the buildings and infrastructure were developed in the 1970s, is no longer needed to house inmates, requires substantial capital investment to meet standards, and is costly to operate and maintain,” the letter stated.
ICE has not yet responded to KQED’s request for comment.
