Federal Immigration Raids: History Repeats Itself on California’s Coast Guard Island

Coast Guard Island, nestled between Oakland and Alameda, is no stranger to controversy. It served as a grim detention site during President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 "Project Jobs," when federal agents swept through Northern California factories and farms, arresting thousands of immigrant workers amid a recession and high unemployment. This operation sought to forcibly replace foreign-born labor with American citizens by targeting any job paying above the minimum wage—a misguided approach that echoes troubling patterns in today's immigration enforcement.Is History Repeating Itself at Coast Guard Island?The 1982 raids captured about 5,400 unauthorized workers nationwide, many held temporarily in Coast Guard Island's...