Prison Shut Over Sexual Abuse May Become ICE Detention Center

A federal women’s prison that shut down in 2024 due to rampant sexual abuse could possibly reopen as an immigration detention facility under the Trump administration.

Hundreds of women alleged they were repeatedly sexually assaulted by prison staff at FCI Dublin, a northern California facility so notorious for sexual violence it was dubbed “the rape club.” Ten prison guards, including the warden and chaplain, were charged with sexually abusing inmates. The majority have been convicted or pleaded guilty.

Dozens of those women were specifically subjected to sexual assault because of their immigration status. A federal criminal investigation revealed that prison guards “explicitly target[ed] immigrant women for abuse, leveraging the threat of deportation,” according to a class action lawsuit filed by more than 100 women who were formerly incarcerated at FCI Dublin. The U.S. government later paid out a $116 million settlement in the suit.

Guards allegedly looked at women’s files to find out if they were undocumented, promised to help with citizenship if they did sexual favors, or threatened to alert U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement if they reported the abuse.

The site — which has also been plagued with such dangerous conditions as asbestos, black mold and water contamination — could reopen as a detention center for immigrants, as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The federal Bureau of Prisons is divesting itself of FCI Dublin and transferring it to the U.S. General Services Administration, according to a letter BOP sent to the Dublin City Council on Dec. 10. Effectively, BOP is washing their hands of the facility and the surrounding 87-acre property, and is handing it over to the administration, which can reassign it to another agency like DHS.

“It’s the first concrete move we’ve seen in a while where BOP is potentially making the first step toward transferring the property into the hands of DHS,” Susan Beaty, an immigration attorney who has worked with hundreds of FCI Dublin victims, told HuffPost.

A BOP spokesperson told HuffPost in July that FCI Dublin remained under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, and there were no plans to reopen it. But now, the Trump administration, which has made an all-out assault on immigrant communities its top priority, can do whatever it wants with FCI Dublin.

A DHS spokesperson told HuffPost this week that the agency “has nothing to announce about new detention facilities for illegal aliens at this time.” The White House referred HuffPost to DHS when reached for comment.

ICE toured FCI Dublin in February, less than three months after the prison had shut down due to widespread sexual violence and structural, environmental hazards.

Using defunct federal prisons to aid ICE is not a new tactic for the Trump administration. The federal government has converted 16 shuttered prisons across a dozen states into ICE detention centers, NPR reported this week.

ICE has been aggressively looking to add a new detention center in Northern California since the agency currently has no facilities in the area. Dublin ― about 45 minutes east of San Francisco ― would be a prime location for DHS, which tends to create ICE hubs near city centers.

Beatriz, a survivor of sexual abuse at FCI Dublin who has since been deported, previously articulated how stressful it would be to have to go back to the prison. She talked about the anxiety and panic attacks she struggles with after her time at FCI Dublin, and how her kids still don’t know what happened to her there. Although the staff would likely be different if the facility reopened under ICE, it would still be deeply concerning to see the crumbling building repurposed.

“Imagine, if I get sent back to Dublin but now for immigration?” Beatriz, who is being identified by a pseudonym to protect her privacy, told HuffPost in July from an ICE detention center in Miami. “After everything that I went through at that place… it’s terrifying.”

Beatriz was incarcerated for over a decade at the California prison where she says a prison guard sexually abused her for years using her immigration status. Beatriz was deported back to Mexico ― a country she hadn’t seen in nearly 35 years — shortly after speaking with HuffPost. Her three adult children and several grandkids live in the U.S.

The unsafe living conditions at FCI Dublin pose at least one hurdle if the federal government pursues reopening the shuttered prison. The former director of BOP testified under oath that the facility was structurally unsafe and needed “tens of millions” in repairs to become habitable. BOP announced in its letter that it will conduct an environmental assessment on the facility before handing it back to GSA.

Immigration advocates, FCI Dublin survivors and Dublin residents are still deeply concerned. There have been ongoing protests outside of the closed federal facility, and over 8,300 people signed a petition to block the shuttered prison from reopening as a detention center.

“Our community would be a better and safer place if this facility were simply demolished,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), a leading advocate for the survivors of FCI Dublin, told HuffPost.

The Dublin City Council unanimously passed a largely symbolic resolution on Tuesday, voting against the reopening or repurposing of the closed women’s prison. Nearly 40 people spoke in opposition to the reopening of FCI Dublin during the public comment portion of the council meeting.

“I’m afraid for a future where our neighbors are afraid to go outside, where my children’s classmates are kept home from school to avoid masked federal agents snatching them or their loved ones up without due process,” a Dublin resident and mother of two said. “It feels dystopian to even express this fear to electeds [sic] in an American council chamber. Yet, here we are.”

Research shows that immigration arrests are higher in areas with detention centers. An 850-bed facility, roughly the size of FCI Dublin, would result in a 6.4 times higher rate of ICE arrests of residents, Stacy Suh, the program director at Detention Watch Network, noted during the city council meeting.

Many of the women who came forward about sexual abuse at FCI Dublin, worked with federal investigators and testified in court against their abusers ― only for the U.S. government to swiftly detain and deport them as soon as they got out of prison.

Two survivors who worked with federal officials to build a case against former FCI Dublin guard Darrell Wayne Smith were later detained and deported, Beaty told HuffPost. Two others who testified against Smith are currently facing deportation. Smith allegedly leveraged prisoners’ immigration statuses to perpetrate sexual violence and was charged with 15 counts of sexual abuse of five prisoners ― the most counts of the nine other prison guards.

After being deported, the U.S. government subpoenaed the survivors to testify in Smith’s federal trial, forcing two of them to travel back to the U.S. after Smith’s first trial ended in a deadlocked jury. His second trial also resulted in a deadlocked jury. Federal prosecutors dismissed all charges against Smith in November.

The federal government could have offered these women a U visa, which was created to encourage victims to report crimes without the threat of deportation. Instead, the government chose not to protect the majority of immigrant survivors who came forward about the rampant sexual abuse at FCI Dublin.

“FCI Dublin is a toxic and decaying facility, and a symbol of sexual violence against incarcerated and immigrant women,” Beaty said. “Survivors of FCI Dublin staff abuse fought for years to hold the federal government accountable and shut down the facility… Reopening the notorious Dublin prison to incarcerate immigrants would be an affront to these survivors, and would only perpetuate abuse.”