San José residents demand no detention centers in Gilroy and Dublin
San José, CA – On May 30, over 250 people gathered outside the Mexican Heritage Plaza in East San Jose to protest plans of an ICE processing and detention center in Gilroy and the reopening of FCI Dublin as an immigrant detention center.
“We haven’t seen as much ICE activity as we have seen in places like Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles,” said Jonathan Soria from Community Service Organization San Jose. “This is because there isn’t a detention center to hold our families here in the Bay Area.”
Since September of last year, the Trump administration has used Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to carry out immigration enforcement operations across the country. As of November, the number of operations increased and their tactics became increasingly violent, with the deaths of community members seeing a sharp spike. Among these dead are Ismael Ayala Uribe, Oscar Duarte Rascón, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, and twelve more.
ICE and CBP activity reached its height during Operation Metro Surge, when agents were sent to Minnesota, culminating in the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
ICE and CBP operations in the Bay Area have included the detentions of Guillermo Medina Reyes and Ulíses Peña López, who were both taken into custody violently. Since then, reports of their holdings detail inhumane treatment, such as denial of medical attention, food, water and access to legal assistance.
“We’ve brought out hundreds outside of the San Francisco Immigration Court to demand that Guillermo be free, to demand that Guillermo be returned to his community in San Jose, because he deserves to be with his family, with his loved ones,” stated Dani Celaya, of Community Service Organization Oakland, to the people protesting at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Community-oriented organizations, including CSO San Jose, CSO Oakland, and WCO for the People, a student-led activist group at San Jose’s WC Overfelt High School, rallied together to denounce the ongoing campaign against immigrants and the Chicano community in the Bay Area and across the country. The organizations have also mobilized people to turn out to San Jose City Hall and the San Francisco Immigration Court with these same demands.
The crowd marched from the Mexican Heritage Plaza all the way to the corner of Story and King, delivering chants, cheers,and speeches, highlighting the resistance towards an administration that is hostile towards and actively targets immigrants and the Chicano community.