This Notorious Women’s Prison Could Be the Bay Area’s Next ICE Facility

On September 3rd, 2021, Aja Jasmin surrendered herself at the Women's Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California (FCI Dublin). Within hours of entering the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, Jasmin was subjected to what women in this infamous prison have experienced since at least the 1990s: sexual violence at the hands of prison staff.

On her first day of incarceration, Jasmin said she was sexually assaulted by the prison's medical officer during an examination that every new inmate receives upon entering the facility. Then, Jasmin was locked away in her cell. Last August, the officer pleaded guilty to charges of abuse against five other women in the facility. He’s the eighth officer who has either pled guilty or been convicted of sexual abuse at the facility. 

"For twenty-eight days they kept me isolated without any contact with my family or my lawyer,” Jasmin told Current. “They would only let me out for about twenty minutes a day to shower," she said. 

After this nearly month-long period of isolation, Jasmin said she was released to the prison camp partition of the facility, a lower security area where inmates interact with one another largely without oversight by prison staff.

"It was like lord of the flies,” she said. “Everyone was fending for themselves. On any given day there were only one or two guards in the camp. It was pure chaos."

Jasmin said she was punished by prison staff following the assault when she attempted to file a complaint against the medical officer.

"I was working as a teacher in the prison when I filed my complaint with the prison health administration. I was told that doing so would mean I would lose my job, which judges would see as a strike against me in future legal proceedings. The guards would use these kinds of threats to keep us quiet," Jasmin said. 

The prison's infrastructure, she says, was also inhospitable. "When it rained outside, we got rained on too. We couldn't use the kitchen area because there were holes in the ceiling. There was mold in the cells, bugs, asbestos everywhere. That place is not a place for humans."

The prison was permanently closed in 2024 after an FBI raid on the facility confirmed allegations of systemic sexual terror by the prison's warden and guards. 

But it’s now one of seven sites across the country currently or possibly tagged to be used as an ICE detention facility. In February 2025, ICE officials toured FCI Dublin raising fears that the facility would be converted into an ICE prison. Jasmin is now a member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), an advocacy group challenging the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the crimes it presided over at FCI Dublin. The group is also partnering with Dublin community members to fight plans to reopen the facility as an ICE prison.

“The Rape Club”

Allegations of sexual assault at FCI Dublin emerged at least as early as 1995, when three women inmates reported they were sexually harassed by prison guards and sexually assaulted by incarcerated men after guards opened their cells in the middle of the night.

The three victims sued the Bureau Of Prisons, settling in 1998 for $500,000. The settlement also included instructions for prison reform aimed at eliminating sexual harassment and assault of inmates, providing an anonymous victim reporting system, and extensive sexual harassment and assault training for prison employees.

In 2003 then President George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), with the goal of eradicating "prisoner rape in all types of correctional facilities in this country." The law required all prisons to pass an annual audit of their rape prevention programs and prove their compliance with federal standards.

Despite these federal and statewide safeguards aimed at protecting prisoners from sexual violence, FCI Dublin came to be known as "The Rape Club" by both guards and inmates over the next three decades. Between 2021 and 2024 alone there were sixty reported complaints of sexual abuse according to the Northern California ACLU.

And much like their federal prison counterparts, ICE prisons across the country have been, and are currently, under investigation for violations of PREA by prison staff. 

Currently in Louisiana, the Southern Louisiana ICE Processing Center is being sued by inmates over the assistant warden’s sexual assault of multiple women. In 2020, Project South, a political advocacy group based in Atlanta Georgia, filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security alleging that staff at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) had conducted coercive sterilizations of numerous women held in ICE custody. 

A 2025 investigation into human rights abuses in immigration detention by U.S. Senator Jon Ossof found “41 credible reports of physical and sexual abuse… 14 credible reports of mistreatment of pregnant women, and 18 credible reports of mistreatment of children.” Additionally, a study conducted by public health scholars published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that between 2018 and 2022, “of 129 facilities included, 90 (70.3%) reported allegations over a 44-month period.” 

While independent oversight ICE controlled prisons has been largely ineffective at preventing sexual violence, Trump’s DHS has gutted the offices responsible for conducting these audits. 

Jasmin says that CCWP’s work treats ICE, State, and Federal prisons as pieces of the same carceral system, and that opposition to one is an opposition to all. “Whether it’s ICE or BOP,” she says, “they must be held accountable for their crimes.”

ICE wants more beds in the Bay

Reverend Deborah Lee is the Co-Executive Director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, a coalition of religious leaders throughout California that "defend the humanity of the immigrant and fight for the rights of the incarcerated" through policy advocacy and political organizing against FCI Dublin and ICE's inhumane treatment of immigrants.

Rev. Lee is helping organize the Dublin community against ICE's potential takeover of FCI Dublin by raising awareness of the harms these facilities bring to the communities.

"When ICE prisons open, racial profiling in the surrounding area increases," Lee says. 

In September, the Supreme Court ordered a stay against a previous lawsuit that barred immigration agents from using race or spoken language as "reasonable suspicion” to investigate someone agents believe may be in the country illegally. This means that ICE can now legally use someone’s “apparent race or ethnicity” or spoken language (including speaking English with an accent) as a pretext to stop someone.

The Supreme Court’s ruling is aimed at removing limitations on ICE to carry out the 3,000 daily  arrests that Trump wants.

But to achieve its deportation goals in the Bay Area, the Trump administration would need an ICE detention facility in the region–as of now, the closest facility is nearly 300 miles away. ICE currently operates or contracts seven prisons in California, all of which are located in the southern parts of the state. ICE’s San Francisco field office is responsible for operations between Bakersfield and Redding. The San Francisco field office does have a small capacity holding cell located at 620 Sansome St., but under its own guidelines, ICE cannot keep someone in a holding facility for longer than 72 hours. 

The fight comes to Dublin

"As it stands the Bureau of Prisons maintains FCI Dublin will not reopen, but they are acting without any kind of transparency. We have seen construction crews moving in and out of the prison, and one worker inside the facility told me that they were instructed to have their work completed soon," Lee said last August.

In December, the BOP sent a letter to Dublin officials, notifying them that they plan to hand the facility over to the U.S. General Services Administration. The GSA manages federal property and contracting for federal agencies, including ICE. 

In Dublin, the movement against a new ICE facility is gaining traction–on December 17th, the Dublin City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing the reopening FCI Dublin as a prison or an immigration detention facility. Though the resolution is largely symbolic, it represents strong opposition to ICE’s presence in Dublin. 

During public comment on this resolution, Nicole Navarro, a victim of the prison’s staff warned what can happen if the federal facility is reopened.

“In 2018, I lived in FCI Dublin. I knew James High House, Ray Garcia, John Bellhouse, Ross Klinger, Nick Nunley, and Darryl Smith—and I survived. I saw correctional officers specifically target women who were undocumented because they knew those women would be shipped back to their home countries where they couldn't or wouldn't bring about any prosecution or fear of retaliation,” Navarro said. “Now is the time to oppose any detention facility in our neighborhoods.”