On March 1, 2025, Kendra Drysdale stood before a crowd of about 500 people at a street protest to rally the Dublin, California community against the potential reopening of a local federal prison as an immigrant detention center. She warned them of the harm and trauma that the reopening could cause — which she knew firsthand, because she and many incarcerated women she knew had been sexually assaulted at Federal Correctional Institution Dublin, or FCI Dublin, when it was a women’s prison.
Before it closed in April 2024, the federal prison was known as the “rape club” for rampant sexual assault and retaliation against incarcerated women who spoke out. Prisoners also reported unsafe building conditions and medical neglect. More than 200 women have sued over sexual abuse or are in the process of suing, and nine employees have been convicted of sex crimes.
However, the facility may not stay closed for long. Last February, news broke that ICE had toured FCI Dublin. In response, local residents, advocates and survivors like Drysdale formed the ICE out of Dublin Coalition and worked to inform the community about the dangers of an ICE takeover of FCI Dublin, successfully getting the Dublin City Council to pass a resolution in December opposing a reopening. Mobilization continues, as the Federal Bureau of Prisons has confirmed it is in the process of transferring the facility to the General Services Administration, which could then transfer it to ICE.
Drysdale was horrified at the news of the transfer and is still working to activate the community and pressure officials to prevent a reopening.
She and other formerly incarcerated women who were sexually assaulted at FCI Dublin have been speaking out since March at monthly rallies and City Council meetings to talk about their experiences of abuse, the deterioration of the building’s infrastructure, and the potential harm to immigrants.
“In FCI Dublin, it was sort of a normalized culture of abuse, with immigrants being more targeted than anyone else because of their vulnerable status,” Drysdale said.
She described the retaliation that she and other whistleblowers faced: After she testified about the abuse she underwent in an evidentiary hearing a month before she was scheduled to get out, her release date was postponed another seven months. The guards also took away her in-person and virtual visits and her access to mail and phone calls.
Drysdale also noted that the building would require major renovations to remedy mold and asbestos problems.
“We all together have come together as survivors of Dublin to advocate,” Drysdale said. “That building should be demolished. None of us want to see it reopen for anyone.”
No ICE detention in Northern California
The ICE out of Dublin coalition formed not long after leaders of the federal prison workers union told the Los Angeles Times in February 2025 that an assessment of FCI Dublin had been provided to ICE “for what appears to be the potential of ICE taking over the facility.” A few days later, another report confirmed ICE officials had toured FCI Dublin.
Activists in the community were not surprised and began organizing immediately. There is no immigrant detention center in the area, and between 2018 and 2023, activists rallied to end ICE contracts for use of local prisons and jails in Sacramento County, Contra Costa County and Yuba County. Activists knew that a second Trump administration would mean a push to expand ICE detention, and in 2024, ICE filed an inquiry into opening a facility near San Francisco.
For Alex Mensing, communications manager at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, one of dozens of groups in the ICE out of Dublin coalition, there is concern that an immigrant detention center in Northern California could result in more enforcement. Northern California currently has the nation’s lowest ICE arrest rate in the country.
“I think that folks recognize that there have been less ICE arrests in Northern California because there’s no ICE detention centers in Northern California, and that’s the result of organizing over the course of the last decade to end any ICE contract,” Mensing said.
Mensing sees keeping the Bay Area free of detention centers as a crucial safeguard “to prevent what’s been happening in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and all these places from happening in Northern California.”
Getting the City Council on board
Bay Area residents have also played a key part in organizing against the reopening of FCI Dublin. In December, the Dublin City Council passed a resolution to oppose the facility reopening after public comments from dozens of local residents, as well as testimony from survivors.
To encourage participation, the ICE out of Dublin coalition went door to door, passed out flyers at local farmers markets and other places people congregated, took down emails, and hosted education sessions on Zoom before City Council meetings.
“It’s chaotic when ICE comes; look at Minneapolis,” said Elizabeth Schmitt, a Bay Area native active in the coalition. “People don’t want that. They want to be able to live their lives without being afraid of being swept up in something or accidentally in the wrong spot at the wrong time and shot. It’s a very basic idea of being safe in your community.”
Schmitt said that City Council meetings are usually poorly attended, but during a meeting the second week of November, there were so many people the session overflowed into a side room where attendees had to watch on a TV.
Speakers “were talking about the inhumanity of ICE, about how the detention centers were badly maintained, badly kept, how people got ill and died in the detention center,” Schmitt said. “They talked about the illegality of people being snatched and deported, and also did not want to repeat what happened when it was an FCI building.”
By the end of the meeting, the City Council agreed to put a resolution opposing the reopening on the December agenda. The resolution passed unanimously at the next meeting.
“The City Council knew immediately this was not an ordinary thing that maybe some people had an interest in,” Schmitt said. “It was quite obvious there were very strong feelings in the community.”
Mobilization ahead
The ICE out of Dublin coalition is also calling for transparency from the federal government about updates and timelines regarding the facility.
Earlier in December, the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent a letter to the City of Dublin saying the facility “is no longer needed to house inmates, requires substantial capital investment to meet standards, and is costly to operate and maintain” and advocating for its disposal through the General Services Administration
However, once the prison is transferred to the GSA following an environmental evaluation, the GSA could transfer ownership to ICE.
“The reason that we feel like that is concerning is because the GSA has been the agency that deals with federal properties, and they have been facilitating ICE takeover of other properties,” Mensing said. “It’s another step towards potentially turning it into an ICE detention center.”
Mensing said that the coalition’s next goal is to get the Board of Supervisors governing Alameda County, which includes Dublin, to put out a statement against FCI Dublin reopening. The coalition has reached out to local U.S. Reps. Mark DeSaulnier and Eric Swalwell to ask them to share any information about plans for FCI Dublin, oppose its reopening and oppose all ICE detention. The organizers also plan to continue holding regular rallies and educating people.
“We’re definitely not going to let up the pressure, and will continue to mobilize people and keep an eye also on the facility,” Mensing said. “There’s a lot of people in Dublin who don’t want it to become an ICE detention center, and they’re paying attention to what’s happening.”
For Drysdale, the stakes are clear: “I don’t want to see the Bay Area have more exposure to ICE because they have a local place to place them. [And] I don’t want to see anyone else go through anything like [we did].”
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