Elected officials in the East Bay who are looking for ways to counter another potential surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can’t patch a big hole in their plans: the 67-acre Coast Guard base in the Oakland Estuary that served as ICE’s base of operations last fall.
[1]The Alameda County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution [2] on Tuesday that puts the county on record as being opposed to any attempts to reopen a shuttered federal prison in Dublin or repurpose it as an immigration detention facility.
More than 60 people spoke in favor [3] of the resolution, including Alameda resident Michael Yoshi, former pastor of Buena Vista United Methodist Church. Yoshi said the church was founded in 1898 by Japanese immigrants who “weathered the storm” of anti-Asian legislation in 1924, only to see most of the congregation sent to World War II internment camps in 1942.
“We stand in strong support of this resolution, and say no to any facilities to be transformed into detention centers today, tomorrow, or in the weeks and years and months to come,” Yoshi said.
Similarly, in a 5-0 vote a few hours later, the Alameda City Council on Tuesday directed staffers to review how the City might stop ICE [4] from using City-owned properties as staging grounds for rounding up legal and undocumented immigrants. The Council received dozens of emails [5] from residents in support of the resolution, with many noting that Alameda County and the City of Oakland have already adopted “ICE-Free Zone” policies.
But before voting for the resolution, Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft Ashcraft took a moment to, as she put it, “speak plainly and [speak] the truth to our residents.”
“You will recall that back in October, without any notice to the City, Coast Guard Island was used for staging for Customs and Border Patrol,” Ashcraft reminded the audience. “We have 600 acres at Alameda Point that is federal property. We have a Navy Reserve Center… right behind it on Clement Avenue. So why ICE would want to come to the City Hall parking lot is beyond me. But [the resolution] is symbolic, and symbolism has a place.”
Alameda, which declared itself a sanctuary city [6] in 2017, will be holding a Bystander Training and Conflict De-escalation Workshop [7] on April 9, which Ashcraft urges residents to attend.
A spokesperson for the City, Sarah Henry, recently reaffirmed to the Alameda Post [8] that the City “will not use any of its resources or staffing (including police staff) to support civil enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
But the Alameda Police Department “cannot interfere with lawful operations of other law enforcement agencies, including ICE,” Henry told the Post.
FCI Dublin, Alcatraz, or… Coast Guard Island?
Flush with $45 billion in funding [9] from last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” to build new jails and detain more immigrants over the next four years, ICE officials reportedly toured [10] the former Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin last year. Although an ICE spokesperson told KQED News [11] in February that it has no plans to use FCI Dublin for immigration detention, Democratic lawmakers say there’s no guarantee that won’t happen after the facility is handed over to the U.S. General Services Administration.
The Trump administration is also seeking funds [12] to rebuild and expand the historic federal prison on Alcatraz Island, a major tourist attraction run by the National Park Service [13] since 1972. That’s a project Trump himself said [14] last year he wanted the Department of Homeland Security to be involved in developing.
Alameda County District Three Supervisor Lena Tam, who represents Alameda, said at Tuesday’s meeting that as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, “I don’t want to see the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution, whether it’s in Dublin or Alcatraz or anywhere, detaining and being assembly areas for immigrants just because they are immigrants.”
But if ICE agents surged into the Bay Area again tomorrow, their headquarters might once again be Coast Guard Island in Alameda, which was the base of operations for a major effort to deport immigrants by the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Many of the hundreds of immigrants swept up in more than 50 raids in 1982 were “herded into the island’s basketball gym and forced to wait until they could be loaded into buses headed toward the southern border,” Berkleyside’s Frances Dinkelspiel reported on AP News in October [15].
Lessons from October
While last year’s ICE surge in the Bay Area lasted just a few days, its repercussions are still being felt—and continue to hint at how a more sustained effort by ICE might play out.
The only entrance to the island by car is from Oakland, where protestors gathered in October to try to block Border Patrol and ICE agents from accessing the Coast Guard Base. But Coast Guard Base Alameda, as the island’s military installation is called, lies within the Alameda city limits.
That explains why Alameda Police Department officers were dispatched to Highland Hospital in Oakland on October 23 to gather evidence and guard a suspect who was shot after allegedly backing a U-Haul rental truck [16] up to the base’s gate.
[17]The suspect, whose legal name is Brendan Munro Thompson, is scheduled to be arraigned on April 20 before a federal magistrate in Oakland on charges of assaulting a federal officer [18] with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Also known as Bella Thompson and Bella Castillo, Thompson, 26, identifies as female, according to her attorneys. On November 21, over the objections of prosecutors, Thompson was released to the custody of her parents, who posted $50,000 bail and took her to Southern California, where she’s enrolled in an outpatient mental health program.
In objecting to Thompson’s release pending trial, prosecutors alleged that [19], “During an otherwise peaceful protest, Thompson drove a U-Haul truck at United States Coast Guard personnel.”
Several of the Coast Guard personnel guarding the entrance to the base “reported that they feared for their lives as the truck approached, believing that the truck would run them over, or that it might contain armed individuals or explosives in the truck’s cargo area,” prosecutors said.
Another argument against granting Thompson bail was her alleged attempt to escape from Alameda Police at Highland Hospital.
“While resting and handcuffed to a gurney, Thompson requested to use the bathroom,” prosecutors said. “Officers removed the handcuffs and permitted Thompson to enter the bathroom across the hall. After a few minutes in the bathroom, Thompson exited quickly and attempted to spring away from the officers.”
After wrestling with her, prosecutors said, “the officers regained control and secured Thompson in handcuffs before returning Thompson to the gurney.”
But Thompson’s attorneys prevailed in their argument that she poses no flight risk. The University of California Los Angeles graduate “has no prior criminal history or law enforcement contacts [and] … until very recently, she had a history of a well-managed mental health disorder and treatment,” they said.
“The government’s risk of flight argument appears to hinge on Ms. Thompson’s attempt to run from officers after she asked to use the bathroom at the hospital very shortly after the incident,” her attorneys concluded [20].
Now that Thompson is “stabilized and understanding the gravity of the circumstances,” her attorneys said, she “understands her situation, the importance of attending court, and critically, what is on the line for her parents as sureties should she fail to comply with bail conditions.”
Another incident that could be headed for litigation involves Oakland resident Jorge Bautista, a pastor who says he was nearly asphyxiated after being shot in the face with a chemical projectile, and has initiated the process to seek $5 million in damages from the government [21] in court.
Impromptu ferry service
While some of the protestors were attempting to deny ICE the use of Coast Guard Island, the base also is home to four Coast Guard cutters and hundreds of support staff—not to mention serving as the headquarters for Vice Admiral Joseph Buzzella [22], commander of the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area [23], which encompasses more than 74 million miles of ocean from the Arctic to Antarctica.
When land access to the base was cut off, Navy and Marine Corps servicemembers based across the estuary at the Navy Reserve Center in Alameda helped ferry more than 500 Coast Guard personnel across the water.
That’s according to a Coast Guard Meritorious Team Commendation [24] presented by Buzzella on January 5 to Navy Commander Trisha Kelly, commanding officer of the reserve center.
[25]From October 23 to October 27, “during an unprecedented period of increased operational vulnerability,” the Navy and Marine Corps reservists “played a pivotal role in safeguarding Coast Guard personnel and assets for the duration of civil unrest in the San Francisco Bay Area,” the November 25 commendation read.
“Due to inaccessibility of the Coast Guard Island entry point, the team provided the only secure means of access and egress for Coast Guard personnel affected by the incident,” the commendation detailed. “The team implemented 24-hour surveillance checks, increased perimeter patrols, and heightened force protection levels to safeguard the passage of Coast Guard personnel.”
Given the problems that demonstrators posed for not only ICE, but the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security might think twice about returning to Alameda, a decision that would be up to them, not local officials.
Weighing on that decision will be the fact that ICE’s surge in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago were hugely controversial. Chief Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino, who played a prominent role in those and other cities, has retired [27]. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was forced to cede her role [28] to Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
On Monday, Mullin floated a new idea [29] on Fox News: Shut down international travel to airports in sanctuary cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles by refusing to provide customs services.
At Tuesday’s Alameda City Council meeting, Ashcraft assured residents that the Council is “appalled by what’s happening.” But she urged those who “really want to change the direction this country is going in” to vote—“and vote in every election.”
Matt Carter is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post [30]. Contact him via [email protected] [31]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/matt-carter [32].