By Nik Wojcik
They say the city of Concord is “Where Families Come First”. The U.S. Department of Navy put that commitment to the test.
On June 22, Time published a story that rocked the city and surrounding Bay Area with news that the U.S. Department of the Navy was considering a detainmentcamp for up 47,000 immigration detainees on the federally-owned Naval Weapons Station property and chaos and resistance actions ensued.
Concord Mayor Edi Birsan told us that “not a single person in the city’s government had been notified” of the proposal – he became aware of the situation when a journalist called and asked him for comment on the TIME piece. When Gov. Jerry Brown’s office was asked if the state received prior notification or had an official position, we were directed to the federal government for all questions. We inquired about the environmental safety of the base with the DON Base Realignment and Closure office but were forwarded to three different contacts and have not yet received confirmation of remediation work performed there, largely by Tetra
Tech EM, Inc., the same contractor accused of falsifying results at Hunters Point Shipyard. It was revealed five days later that the entire state of California was being pulled from consideration as potential locations for temporary detainment centers “for the time being”, but some real damage had already been done.
It would have been a detainment camp with the population the size of Danville. For context, the U.S. detained about 117,000 Japanese Americans during WWII among 10 internment camps. The largest of which was Tule Lake, CA with 18,879 detainees.
In a show of solidarity, Birsan and Congressman Mark DeSaulnier were quick to push back on the DON proposal as what DeSaulnier called “madness”, which he reiterated in a Facebook Live Town Hall meeting streamed on Tuesday, July 26. Birsan’s official letter of response, dated June 25, highlighted several reasons the property was “unsuitable for consideration as a detention facility”, including the base’s lack of infrastructure and presence of contaminants. The mayor is familiar with issues surrounding the 12,800-acre base, as he has been a participant in several years of negotiations for the transfer of the property to the city, where major development is well into the planning phase and millions have already been spent toward the effort.
Birsan also explained how inappropriate it would be to jail immigrants in a city gifted by Mexican-Americans to survivors of the tragic 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake, which destroyed the original city of Pacheco. Although the city was originally named Todos Santos, Birsan explained that “the people almost immediately began calling it Concord because we live in concordance with one another”.
“The town was created to take care of refugees and survivors,” Birsan said while vowing to the lead the opposition.
The people of Concord quickly realized they had no say about the role their city would play in what could go down as one of the largest civil rights stains in U.S. history, but residents and many others from nearby communities came out in force to have their voices heard anyway. Tuesday’s regular session city council meeting was met with hundreds of concerned residents and protesters who marched with signs from Concord BART, an unusual site in the ordinarily quiet East Bay suburb. The chamber was quickly packed to capacity as the fire marshal turned people away at the door. Drums and chanting from outside served as a backdrop to the emotional meeting.
A special public council session was called the very next day to solely address the issue of CNWS and was again heavily attended by residents of Concord and protesters from around the Bay, despite Tuesday’s late news that the plan was taken off the table for consideration. Those unable to enter the primary chamber or the overflow room were forced to wait outside in the courtyard. Inside, public comments were heard, one after another for nearly two solid hours. Several speakers praised the council for their swift and strong condemnation of the proposal but begged them to keep up the fight and do more.
The story in Concord attracted people from all walks of life. The daughter of a Japanese-American interned during WWII urged the city to heed her warnings. “My family has continued to suffer the intergenerational trauma from that,” Reverend Leslie Tokahashi said. Immigrant families expressed fear of federal agents and an ICE detention camp in a heavily-Latino community. Housing advocates explained that immigrants had already been adversely affected by the news. Debra Bernstein of Monument Impact said property owners had been “emboldened” and evictions of immigrant tenants spiked in the few short days after news of the proposal.
A recently retired Child Protective Services social worker, Rebecca Nassarre told horrific stories of sexual assault among young, unaccompanied female detainees. “They have been raped and 
assaulted by our government, by people who are supposed to take care of them,” Nassarre said as she pleaded with the council to stay resolute in their opposition.
Members of the clergy and BAMN activists took to the podium inside the chamber and although their tones were decidedly different, their message was the same: asylum-seekers are not criminals and “no human is illegal”.
We commonly see this level of community action and unity in cities like San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, but it’s a rarity in Concord. That was a point of inspiration for many and fear for some.
One speaker by the name of Natalie thanked the council for their support but warned of what could come as the city becomes more vocal in the fight against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. She worried the attention would bring “Nazis” and other alt-right counter-protesters into Concord, as they have shown up in cities like Berkeley over the past two years.
“We have to walk a very fine line,” Natalie said. “Please dance gracefully.”
Outside the chamber was one man by the name of Patrick Little, dressed in a suit and holding a sign that read “Deport Foreign Nationals”. Little believes the immigrants being detained at the southern border are a threat to his business and the only people who should be granted asylum are “victims of ISIS” persecuted for their Christian faith. Little recently made a name for himself in a bid for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat. The Albany resident was banned from the California
Republican Party convention for his extreme anti-Semitic rhetoric.
BAMN activists attempted to drown out Little’s words as he spoke with the press and the exchange expanded in a heated debate between several people, at least partially affirming some of Natalie’s concerns.
A lot happened in Concord during the frantic days between the TIME article’s publication and the government’s rescindment of the proposal. According to Birsan, the city incurred costs for additional police, meetings, and compensatory time swaps. Fear struck the community, and some suffered from the backlash. But in the end, what we can say is that the immigration policy fight arrived at Concord’s front door, or backyard, and the people united in their response:
“Immigrants are welcome here!”