City Government

Council President Kaplan Denounces ICE Deportation Flights From Oakland Airport

Published

7 years ago

July 27, 2019

Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan has responded to reports that Oakland Airport has been used for ICE deportation flights.

Kaplan had previously authored the successful Oakland City Council Resolution prohibiting colluding with ICE, including opposing police actions when the Oakland administration had authorized OPD to assist in an ICE raid in West Oakland.

According to news reports, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chartered about 1,000 flights between 2010 and 2018 from Oakland, carrying detainees on their way to deportation or transfer between detention centers.

In total, about 43,000 people were flown in and out of Oakland during that period. Nearly 27,000 were being deported.

Kaplan has reached out to Port leaders in response to these allegations. The airport is under the governance of the Port of Oakland, which is under a separate board, not reporting to the City Council. The port is governed by a Board of Commissioners, who are selected by the Mayor.

Kaplan is seeking information from port leadership about the news reports.

According to information received thus far, the flights ended in October 2018.

Kaplan is continuing to follow up with other personnel to determine how the flights were authorized and to validate that they are not continuing.

“As the author of the City of Oakland policy prohibiting colluding with ICE, I want to clearly oppose any use of Oakland Airport or other public facilities for these deportation activities,” said Kaplan. “I have reached out to leaders at the port, to help determine what has happened and why. Thus far, I have been told that the flights stopped in October 2018. I am continuing to follow up to seek to determine how this took place.”

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

5 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”