Live reports from CBP staging area at Coast Guard Island

Yesterday, a Coast Guard spokesperson, Petty Officer Graves, confirmed to The Oaklandside that an “operation” was underway and that the Coast Guard amenities in Alameda, on a small island related to Oakland by a single street, would supply help to Customs and Border Safety. Later within the day, Oakland Unified College District wrote to the varsity group: “We obtained official studies this afternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to extend their actions within the Bay Space by Saturday, October 25, if not sooner.”

Oakland is a haven, and native immigrant advocacy teams and elected officers have made plans for intensified federal operations within the Bay Space.

• The group Bay resistance has deliberate a protest for as we speak, October 23, at 5:00 PM at San Francisco Embarcadero Plaza.
• The unbiased media middle of the San Francisco Bay Space posted that there might be one Shrine Religion Vigil as we speak, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., on the Oakland entrance to the bridge resulting in Coast Guard Island, at Dennison Avenue and Embarcadero.
• The Oakland chapter of the Freedom Highway Socialist Group had referred to as for one ‘ICE out of the Bay’ march and rally beginning at Oakland’s Fruitvale Plaza at 4 p.m. and ending at Coast Guard Island Bridge.

7:12 am

Extra protesters are coming by the minute. There are not any extra vehicles coming onto the bridge in any respect. Three workers from the Oakland Division of Public Works stopped by and left.

7:02 am

There are not less than fifty protesters on the bottom now, and the Sanctuary Religion Vigil will start in half an hour, so extra will seemingly present up quickly. Some are chanting at Coast Guard safety officers: “Give up your job!”

One heckler shouted on the crowd to “get an actual job” and “go house.” Then he left himself, probably to go house.

Low-level confrontations start to happen with the Coast Guard safety officers. A girl may very well be heard saying, “Do not contact me, officer!” A minimum of one Coast Guard safety officer on scene is carrying an computerized weapon.

In the meantime, the day is like every other in Oakland’s closely immigrant and Latino Fruitvale District, the place the roads are already lined with vans and vehicles full of individuals commuting to work and faculty. However the House Depot off Excessive Avenue in Fruitvale appears quiet. Only a few day laborers are gathered alongside the streets and corners the place they often congregate.

6:35 am

A couple of dozen protesters are actually gathered on the entrance to the bridge. Some have began strolling forwards and backwards on the crosswalk throughout the entry street, blocking site visitors. One protester says right into a megaphone: “They’re taking your neighbors to focus camps.” Coast Guard safety officers come to the doorway and attempt to clear the protesters and permit automobiles to enter.

Site visitors is piling up on all of the feeder roads to the bridge – Embarcadero and Dennison going each methods. One protester introduced a cart stuffed with audio system and performed Vivaldi.

5:42 am

Proper now, all is quiet on the Oakland facet of the slim two-lane street that leads within the pre-dawn darkness to Coast Guard Island, on the nook of Dennison Avenue and Embarcadero. However there’s a regular stream of site visitors to the island, automobiles of all makes and fashions. Coast Guard Island, house to a Coast Guard base, is positioned within the Oakland Estuary between Oakland and Alameda.

A couple of dozen reporters have additionally gathered, vying for pictures of a single protester standing on the foot of the bridge to the island, holding an indication that reads “ICE out now” and “Disgrace on you.” The protester has declared a ‘civilian checkpoint’ and shouts: ‘What are you doing right here?’ in opposition to vehicles coming into the power. 4 guards direct the site visitors round him.

A close-by dumpster has been spray-painted with anti-ICE messages.

Further reporting by Darwin BondGraham.