OAKLAND, California — Dozens of immigration advocates gathered on Sunday, October 25, in Parking Lot C at Eastmont Mall in Oakland and staged a symbolic die-in, ABC7 San Francisco reported. Organizers said the action honoured people who have died while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and was meant to draw attention to alleged ongoing ICE activity at the shopping centre.

Source: ABC7 San Francisco

Gabriela Galicia, executive director of the Street Level Health Project, told ABC7 that advocates want ICE out of Eastmont Mall and out of health care facilities. Legal observers, she said, have documented ICE agents using the parking lot since December 2025. Activists allege the site has been used to transfer detainees for more than a year, and cited a June 2026 case in which a community member was allegedly picked up at home, taken to this parking lot and transferred to another ICE vehicle. Those transfer claims are allegations by advocates, not findings by a court.

Advocates said the location matters because the lot sits beside an Alameda County community health clinic. Francisco Herrera of the Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Worker Center told ABC7 that fear of agents keeps some people away from the clinic. An earlier report by The Oaklandside, in July, also described an alleged June transfer at the mall's Lot C, in front of a centre for elders on Bancroft Avenue, and noted the Eastmont Wellness Center at the mall serves many immigrants, refugees and low-income residents. In that earlier report, ICE did not respond to questions, and Alameda Health System said its security staff were unaware of ICE activity at the mall the previous month.

Source: The Oaklandside via Europe Says

Alameda County Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas attended Sunday's event and pledged to keep monitoring ICE activity in the area and to remain vigilant in protecting local communities, ABC7 reported. A county sign posted in a portion of the lot under Alameda County control states that the area may not be used for immigration enforcement activities, according to the report.

The Department of Homeland Security, responding to questions about Eastmont, said in a statement paraphrased by ABC7 that ICE presence in public parking lots is fully authorized under federal law and is standard practice for law enforcement nationwide. Activists dispute that characterization, noting Eastmont Mall is privately owned. They are calling on the owner, Tidewater Capital, to put safety first and tell ICE not to come to the property. ABC7 said it reached out to the mall owners and had not received a response as of Sunday evening.

Organizers said they plan to send an open letter this week to Oakland city leaders and to the mall ownership asking that all ICE-related activity be barred from the property. No arrests or injuries at Sunday's demonstration were reported in the coverage reviewed.