Congressman: BOP has no plans to turn Dublin prison into ICE detention center
U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier tours the closed FCI Dublin. June 20, 2025
DUBLIN, Calif. - A California congressman on Friday said the director of the federal Bureau of Prisons told him that the BOP has no plans to turn the empty FCI Dublin facility into an ICE detention center.
‘Highly unlikely’
In an interview outside the now-shuttered all-women's prison, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier said that BOP Director William Marshall III told him within the last three months that the federal prison agency has no plans to contract with ICE to detain undocumented immigrants, as is being done at a handful of other prisons nationwide.
"It's highly unlikely," DeSaulnier said.
DeSaulnier said the new director has been very "forthcoming" with him, as compared to former BOP Director Colette Peters, whom he said "stonewalled" him.
The BOP did not immediately respond for comment to confirm this conversation between the director and the East Bay congressional representative.
DeSaulnier's comments are the first indication since February that the closed prison may not be used for immigration – at least not now.
Interfaith activists held a rally to protest the now-closed FCI Dublin prison from turning into an ICE detention center. April 16, 2025
ICE had toured prison
Four months ago, John Kostelnik, the Western region vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals No. 33, which represents federal prison workers, told KTVU that immigration officials toured FCI Dublin, eyeing the empty building for a possible ICE detention center.
At least four other BOP prisons are being used in this way in the United States.
That revelation of the ICE tour sparked at least two big community protests, where hundreds of community members spoke out against the idea.
Attorney Susan Beaty, who represents many of the sexual assault survivors who were incarcerated at FCI Dublin, said that historically, more immigrants are rounded up and detained when there are buildings and detention centers to house them in.
"The Bay Area community has been clear: FCI Dublin must remain closed, and we will not accept immigration detention in our backyard," Beaty said on Friday. "If BOP leadership told a member of Congress that the agency does not currently have plans to operate an immigration detention center at FCI Dublin, this is not new information, and does nothing to allay the community's concerns about the future of the prison."
About 500 people came out to protest FCI Dublin becoming an ICE detention center. March 1, 2025
Caveats could change
There are also many caveats that could occur which would overturn what the BOP director told DeSaulnier.
Mainly, President Donald Trump could turn the land over to another federal agency, and they could use it for whatever they want.
The Department of Defense owns the land and has not responded to any of KTVU's inquiries as to what will become of this land, next to to Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail.
Beaty pointed out that the "public has no reason to trust anything BOP says," and ICE and the Trump administration could detain immigrants at FCI Dublin without the BOP's involvement.
"We will continue to demand information and accountability, and continue to demand that no one is incarcerated at the Dublin prison--by ICE or BOP--ever again," Beaty said.
DeSaulnier spoke to KTVU after he had a semi-private tour of the closed prison.
KTVU asked for a tour as well and was denied.
A BOP spokesman emailed that "currently, we are unable to accommodate tours at FCI Dublin."
DeSaulnier said walking through the empty prison felt "eerie."
He said that there are obvious signs that people in the prison have "physically moved out."
Outside the facility on Friday, a correctional officer from FCI Mendota was there, overseeing about a dozen incarcerated men from that prison, which is 130 miles away, pulling weeds from the yard.
Powerless in Prison: The fallout of FCI Dublin
In April, the Bureau of Prisons abruptly shut down the troubled FCI Dublin. KTVU interviews dozens of women and explains what led up to the closure, questioning whether this was retaliation for outside oversight over the prison, which has been riddled with sex abuse for decades.
Why the prison closed
The BOP closed FCI Dublin in April 2024 after a rampant sexual abuse scandal there that prompted a federal judge to order an unprecedented special master over the prison.
That special master order, in turn, led the former director, Peters, to decide she couldn't alter the sexualized culture of the prison, and that it also would cost too much money to upgrade and fix the prison, which is full of asbestos.
The more than 600 women were either released early or sent to prisons elsewhere around the country.
The prison employees cleared out of there earlier this month. Many were told to work at the high-security prison in Atwater, nearly 90 miles away.
One of those officers told KTVU on Friday that he gets picked up daily on a bus, makes the two-hour drive to Atwater, works for two hours, and drives back home two hours to Dublin, where he was recently evicted from his mobile home that sits on federal land.
Meanwhile, seven of eight correctional officers have been found guilty of sex crimes. The eighth officer is facing a second trial in August after a hung jury couldn't decide on his guilt in April.