By Betty Yu, KTVU Fox 2
July 19, 2025
SOURCE: ktvu.com/news/japanese-americans-supporters-rally-against-dublin-detention-center.amp
DUBLIN, Calif. – Hundreds gathered at Don Biddle Community Park in Dublin on Saturday to rally against the potential reopening of a shuttered federal prison as an immigration detention center.
Japanese American community members joined immigrant rights advocates, drawing direct comparisons between current immigration practices and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The rally featured taiko drumming, which opened the event and continued between speakers throughout the afternoon. Attendees hung strands of origami cranes, symbols of peace and justice, and held signs that read, “ICE Out of Dublin” and “Block ICE.”
Gregory Wada, a taiko performer, shared his family’s personal history of wartime incarceration.
“My grandma, like many Japanese Americans, grew up farming in the Central Valley, on the Delta here,” Wada said. “And with 120,000 other Japanese Americans during World War II, an American citizen born here in the United States, but was incarcerated.”
He said he sees painful similarities between the government’s treatment of immigrant families today and the injustices of the 1940s.
“That’s going to live for generations, that pain,” Wada said tearfully. “So I think as a society if we can do something kinder, if we can learn a bit.”
Concerns mount over former FCI Dublin facility
The protest focused on FCI Dublin, a federal women’s prison closed in April 2024 following multiple sexual abuse cases involving prison staff. Demonstrators fear the facility may now be converted into an ICE detention center.
“I’m a descendant of World War II incarceration, and so my family was targeted by the administration during wartime,” said KC Mukai of Tsuru for Solidarity. “And so I have a visceral response in seeing the same tactics and strategies used against communities today.”
The FCI Dublin Prison Solidarity Coalition, formed to support women formerly incarcerated at the facility, is sounding the alarm.
“There’s asbestos and black mold throughout the facility. The conditions that they were living in were horrible,” said coalition member Marissa Seko. “It was almost impossible to get any kind of medical care, in addition to all the sexual abuse and retaliation that they faced. We can’t allow this to go forward.”
Dr. Doug Yoshida, an emergency physician who treated former FCI Dublin inmates and whose father was detained during WWII, also addressed the crowd.
“I want them to know our history of unjust detainment of various people,” Yoshida said.