Alameda County Rejects Federal Plan to Reopen Prison Notorious for Sexual Abuse as ICE Detention Center

Alameda County officials delivered a clear message to the Trump administration this week: don't bring your deportation machine to our backyard, especially not to a prison that was closed because guards couldn't stop sexually assaulting the women locked inside.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to oppose any attempt to reopen the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, whether as a prison or an immigration detention facility. The resolution comes after credible reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement or federal contractors are considering converting the shuttered facility into a detention center for immigrants.

FCI Dublin was a low-security women's prison that the Bureau of Prisons closed in 2024 due to what officials delicately called "staff misconduct, inadequate oversight, and infrastructure issues." The reality was far uglier: the facility became synonymous with sexual abuse, with multiple prison guards convicted of assaulting incarcerated women under their control.

Now the federal government wants to put a fresh coat of paint on that nightmare and fill it with detained immigrants.

"This is symbolic because the federal government can do whatever it wants to do," said Supervisor David Haubert, who co-sponsored the resolution with Supervisor Elisa Marquez. "But this is an expression of our community that we do not want this."

Haubert had already sent a letter to the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Homeland Security in April expressing opposition to the rumored plan. Tuesday's resolution formalizes that stance with the full backing of the county board.

The supervisors heard over an hour of public comment before the vote. Every single speaker supported the resolution.

Haubert pointed to the systemic failures that forced the closure of FCI Dublin as evidence that the facility poses serious safety risks for anyone detained there. Those aren't theoretical concerns. The prison's closure came after years of documented abuse, failed oversight, and a culture of impunity that allowed guards to prey on vulnerable women with little consequence.

The Trump administration's interest in FCI Dublin fits a broader pattern of expanding immigration detention infrastructure at breakneck speed, often in facilities with documented problems. The administration has made mass deportation a centerpiece of its agenda, and that requires places to warehouse people while their cases wind through an overwhelmed immigration court system.

"We need to invest in people and not in jails and detention centers," Marquez said after the vote.

The resolution is largely symbolic. County officials have no legal authority to prevent the federal government from reopening a federal facility. But the unanimous vote sends a political signal that local leaders won't quietly accept the conversion of a disgraced prison into an immigration detention center.

A similar fight is brewing across the Bay, where President Trump requested $152 million in his 2027 budget to cover first-year costs of reopening Alcatraz as a prison. The total price tag for that project: $2 billion. Bay Area political leaders have condemned the Alcatraz plan as both fiscally reckless and morally bankrupt.

The pattern is clear: the administration is hunting for any available space to expand its detention capacity, regardless of cost or suitability. FCI Dublin's history of abuse makes it particularly unsuitable for housing vulnerable populations, but that hasn't stopped federal officials from reportedly considering it.

For now, Alameda County has drawn a line. Whether the federal government respects that line remains to be seen.