Dozens of advocates gathered Sunday in Parking Lot C at Oakland's Eastmont Mall, staging a symbolic die-in to honor people who died in ICE custody and demanding that mall owners stop allowing immigration agents to stage operations on the property. Organizers said the demonstration was meant to draw attention to what they described as ongoing ICE activity at the shopping center, located next to a county health clinic that serves immigrant and low-income families.
Gabriela Galicia, executive director of the Street Level Health Project, said legal observers have documented ICE agents using the parking lot since December 2025. Galicia also said a community member was taken from their home to the lot in June and transferred to another ICE vehicle there, according to the report from ABC7 Bay Area. A separate account reported by The Oaklandside says the Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership, or ACILEP, learned that a person detained by ICE in June reported being taken to the mall's Parking Lot C before being transported to ICE's processing center in San Francisco. ACILEP told the outlet it had not confirmed any other Alameda County arrests involving similar parking-lot transfers.
A Clinic Next Door Feels the Strain
The Eastmont Mall lot sits adjacent to an Alameda County community health clinic, according to the ABC7 account, and advocates say that proximity has made patients afraid to seek care. Francisco Herrera, affiliated with the Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Worker Center, said people fear coming to the clinic and may become sick, as may others around them. He urged property owners to put safety first and tell ICE not to come there, and noted that Eastmont Mall is a private parking lot rather than a public one.
The clinic itself, Eastmont Wellness, is one of four Alameda Health System Wellness Centers that function as neighborhood medical homes, offering free parking for patients and families and urgent care for children, according to Alameda Health System. The Oaklandside reported that Eastmont Wellness serves many immigrants, refugees, and low-income residents, and that a system spokesperson said security staff were unaware of any ICE activity at the mall the previous month. The Oakland Police Department told the same outlet that, under normal circumstances, outside law enforcement agencies including ICE notify the department of their general location and activities when operating within city limits.
Ownership and a County Sign
A sign posted at the site states that the portion of the lot under Alameda County control may not be used for immigration enforcement activities, though Eastmont Mall itself is owned by Tidewater Capital, which bought the complex, known as Eastmont Town Center, through an affiliate in 2022 in a deal valued at $76.2 million, according to the Mercury News. That report also noted the complex houses several Alameda County government and social-service agencies along with an Oakland Police Department substation. ABC7 Eyewitness News said Eastmont Mall's property owners had not responded to its request for comment as of Sunday evening.
A proposed Alameda County resolution would prohibit county-owned or county-controlled properties, including parking lots, vacant lots, buildings and garages, from being used as staging areas, processing locations or operations bases for civil immigration enforcement, according to documents filed with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. The proposal would not apply to property under an existing county lease or concession agreement, and it would not restrict lawful judicial warrants or criminal-law enforcement. The same documents note that Alameda County Sheriff's Office policy, revised in April 2023, establishes zero contact with immigration officials except when a criminal warrant has been signed by a judge.
City Leaders Join the Demonstration
Oakland City Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas attended Sunday's event and pledged to continue monitoring ICE activity in the area, saying she would remain vigilant in protecting communities against ICE. Advocates at the gathering also alleged that a detainee taken to Highland Hospital after an incident involving ICE agents suffered fractured ribs after being tackled by an agent. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that ICE presence in public parking lots is authorized under federal law and standard law-enforcement practice nationwide.
Organizers said they planned to send an open letter to Oakland city leaders and mall ownership this week, asking that all ICE-related activity be barred from the property. Community activists allege the site has been used to transfer detainees for more than a year, though that claim comes from the activists themselves rather than independent confirmation.
Part of a Wider Surge in Arrests
The Eastmont Mall dispute comes amid a sharp rise in immigration enforcement across the region. Data from the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley, reported by ABC7 News, showed 2,928 ICE arrests in the San Francisco area from January through July 2025, compared with 4,970 arrests during the same period this year — an increase of nearly 70%. UC Berkeley researcher David Hausman said the rate of arrests not happening at jails or prisons has climbed more than tenfold compared with before the current administration.
Just days before the Eastmont Mall demonstration, the Alameda County Immigration Legal Education Partnership said two ICE arrests of Alameda County residents occurred the prior Friday — one in Emeryville and the other near San Antonio Park in Oakland — and that both detainees were hospitalized, according to the East Bay Times. The group condemned what it described as excessive force by federal agents during those arrests. The Oaklandside has also tracked other enforcement actions across the city over the past year and a half, including arrests at the Port of Oakland, Hoover Elementary School, and the Wiley Manuel Courthouse.
The fight over parking-lot staging is playing out well beyond Oakland. Mayors in New York, Chicago, and Boston have issued executive orders banning ICE from using city-owned parking lots and properties, as reported by The Appeal, and roughly 100 people attended a September protest outside a Manhattan parking garage over alleged ICE vehicle use there. Hudson River Park Trust did not renew its own ICE parking contract after it expired in late June following community opposition. In Massachusetts, activists with Bearing Witness New England have held weekly protests outside ICE's Boston Field Office, alleging ICE vehicles were kept in a nearby privately owned lot, according to Truthout, which also reported that ICE posted a notice seeking so-called Surge Parking in 14 cities, including Boston.
