DUBLIN, Calif. — Alameda County officials on Monday sent a cease-and-desist letter to the acting field director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), demanding that federal agents immediately stop using county property — including the parking lot, lobby and surrounding areas of Santa Rita Jail in Dublin — for immigration enforcement operations, East Bay Insiders reported.
Source: East Bay Insiders
In the letter, Alameda County Counsel accused federal agents of repeatedly using the jail's parking lot, lobby and surrounding areas for enforcement operations without authorization. The county warned that the activity violates county policy, interferes with the county's legal authority to control its own property, and creates significant safety risks for the public, sheriff's personnel and other county employees.
Told to stop — and kept coming, the county says
County attorneys said sheriff's officials had informed federal agents on several occasions that immigration enforcement activities were prohibited on county property and had instructed them to stop using the jail and its parking lot for that purpose. Despite those warnings, the county says, ICE personnel continued the practice — which is what prompted the formal demand that agents immediately cease all civil immigration enforcement activities on county-owned or county-controlled property.
"Let me be clear: our communities deserve safety, not fear. Alameda County will not stand by while our residents are targeted and our public resources are misused," Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas said. "We will continue to defend our communities, protect families, uphold everyone's rights, and work diligently to ensure that all residents can access essential County services without fear or intimidation."
Two weeks of arrests near county buildings
The letter follows three reported ICE arrests near county facilities over the past two weeks: an arrest near Santa Rita Jail at about 8 a.m. on October 25, another near the jail on October 30, and an arrest outside the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin at about 10:15 a.m. on November 5. The county's immigration rapid-response network, ACILEP, reports 19 arrests across Alameda County over the same two weeks. Tri-Valley reporting in the same period described rising ICE activity around Dublin and Pleasanton — including the October 25 arrest of a Guatemalan national near Santa Rita Jail and further arrests in Livermore on November 5 — and Dublin Mayor Sherry Hu said Dublin police were not involved in the federal activity.
Source: OpGov News (Tri-Valley)
The ICE-Free Zones policy behind the letter
The letter enforces a policy the Board of Supervisors adopted unanimously in January 2026: no county-owned or county-controlled property — parking lots, vacant lots, buildings or garages — may be used as a staging area, processing location or operations base for civil immigration enforcement. The county's own resolution text also sets a zero-contact policy for the Sheriff's Office with immigration officials except when a criminal warrant has been signed by a judge. The policy grew out of the Alameda County Together for All Committee, created in January 2025 and chaired by Supervisor Bas, and supervisors have allocated millions of dollars for immigration legal assistance and emergency services.
Source: Alameda County Board of Supervisors (acgov.org)
An immediate halt to all civil immigration enforcement activity on county-owned or controlled property — including the Santa Rita Jail parking lot and lobby in Dublin — after the county says agents kept operating there despite repeated instructions from sheriff's officials to stop.
The limits of a county's power
County officials themselves have acknowledged the policy's limits. When the ICE-Free Zones rules were approved, Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez noted the Sheriff's Office would be unable to prevent ICE from making arrests on public county property, the Daily Californian reported — which is why the county planned to enforce the ban through physical barriers, signage, staff reporting requirements and civil steps such as cease-and-desist orders. Alameda is not acting alone: its board letter cites Chicago's October 2025 ICE-Free Zones executive order and Santa Clara County's move the same month to restrict immigration enforcement on county property. The reports of Monday's letter carried no response from ICE.
For the East Bay's immigrant communities — including the large Punjabi and Sikh population across Fremont, Hayward and the Tri-Valley, many of whom use county courts, hospitals and the Santa Rita Jail's public areas to visit family members — the fight is about whether a routine trip to a county building can turn into an immigration arrest. Residents who see ICE activity can call ACILEP's hotline at 510-241-4011.
What happens next
The county's demand is for immediate compliance, but the letter itself does not settle whether ICE will pull back from Santa Rita Jail and other county sites, or whether the dispute moves toward the civil enforcement tools the county built into its policy in January. What is certain is the pattern the county is pointing to: three arrests near county facilities in two weeks, a rapid-response count of 19 arrests countywide, and — on the county's account — agents who kept using the jail after being told to stop. The next arrests, or their absence, around Dublin's county buildings will show whether the letter changed anything on the ground.