Ferry to Angel Island with Maggie in the background - Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025
By Peter Hartlaub, Culture Critic Oct 25, 2025 - San Francisco Chronicle
A man-made island in the Oakland Estuary has been at the center of Bay Area news this week.
Since the Chronicle reported Wednesday that the Trump administration was sending more than 100 federal agents to Coast Guard Island, the entrance to the little-known isle between Oakland and Alameda has become the epicenter of protests over the president’s planned immigration operation and the site of confrontations between demonstrators and federal agents and Coast Guard security personnel.
For some in the Bay Area, it’s likely the first they’ve heard of the 67-acre island that’s connected to Oakland but historically part of the city of Alameda. But the base has a long and dramatic history dating back a century, including busting Prohibition rum-runners, training tens of thousands of Coast Guard recruits and holding immigrants after another controversial immigration bust.
What is Coast Guard Island? The story of the base at the center of this week’s immigration firestorm
Greg
Quick and Dirty
A man-made island in the Oakland Estuary has been at the center of Bay Area news this week.
Since the Chronicle reported Wednesday that the Trump administration was sending more than 100 federal agents to Coast Guard Island, the entrance to the little-known isle between Oakland and Alameda has become the epicenter of protests over the president’s planned immigration operation and the site of confrontations between demonstrators and federal agents and Coast Guard security personnel.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
For some in the Bay Area, it’s likely the first they’ve heard of the 67-acre island that’s connected to Oakland but historically part of the city of Alameda. But the base has a long and dramatic history dating back a century, including busting Prohibition rum-runners, training tens of thousands of Coast Guard recruits and holding immigrants after another controversial immigration bust.
Coast Guard security personnel stand guard at the entrance to Coast Guard Island Alameda the morning after security opened fire on a U-Haul truck as it backed up a ramp toward the base.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
The island was formed in the early 1910s, when trawler boats dredged the Oakland Estuary to create the land mass. Its first name was Government Island, and both Oakland and Alameda claimed rights to the land. The Supreme Court ruled in the latter’s favor, and Alameda began harbor development plans, but during World War I in 1918 the U.S. government used wartime powers to take over 15 acres of Government Island.
A small Navy air base was planned in 1926, before a much larger one was built in ensuing years on the western end of Alameda. The Coast Guard moved onto part of the island between 1926 and 1928, establishing the base that remains today.
Map shows location of Coast Guard Base Alameda in relation to Oakland and the surrounding area.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
3000 feet
N
Alameda County
Alameda County
Map: Todd Trumbull/S.F. Chronicle
The earliest news headlines from the base focused on rum-running. The Coast Guard was a key enforcer during Prohibition, and there were so many early 1930s stories about boats smuggling alcoholic beverages, that the Chronicle was compelled to run an article explaining that “chasing petty rum-runners in and out of harbors is only a small part” of the Coast Guard’s job.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Alameda was set to regain the land in 1943 after the military’s 25-year lease expired, but World War II scuttled those plans. In 1942, the Coast Guard took over the entire island, making it their main regional base and the center of recruiting efforts. By the late 1970s, 2,800 recruits arrived on Coast Guard Island annually; Chronicle photos show a class of 50 getting long hair shorn.
March 1, 1978: Recruits arrive to get their hair cut and begin training on Coast Guard Island.
Vince Maggiora/S.F. Chronicle
The island’s bridge to Oakland, where this week’s protests occurred, was built around the same time. A 1942 Chronicle photo shows the Coast Guard football team in uniform in a giant rowboat, stroking toward land to play the San Francisco Packers.
Today, the base serves as the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area Command headquarters, covering all maritime security in the Pacific Ocean. Four Coast Guard cutters, the branch’s largest ships, dock on the island, including three 418-footers that patrol from the Antarctic to the Arctic to the shores of Africa.
This week’s arrival of federal agents, including some from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, wasn’t the first time the base has been involved in immigration enforcement.
April 27, 1982: Immigrants board a bus on Coast Guard Island that will deported them to Mexico after immigration raids under President Ronald Reagan.
Steve Ringman/S.F. Chronicle
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, federal agents made aggressive raids in 1982 under the name “Project Jobs,” detaining hundreds of immigrant workers in Oakland and Santa Rosa, claiming they had taken “high-paying” jobs at $4 to $8 per hour, which should have gone to U.S. citizens.
Chronicle photos show dozens of immigrants detained in a Coast Guard Island gymnasium, later taking a bus marked “U.S. Immigration” that was bound for Mexico.
“What can you do?” Abraham Rodriguez, 22, told the Chronicle. “We’ll go to Mexico, but we’ll be right back.”
Coast Guard Island has been relatively low profile in recent years. Recruit training moved off the island in the 1980s, and now takes place entirely in Cape May, N.J. But the island remains home base for 4,000 Coast Guard members stationed in the Bay Area, with a gymnasium, bank and grocery store. Many members live just across the estuary on Alameda’s main island.
And the base remains the Pacific Area command, with a huge influence inside the agency. Two of the last three non-acting Coast Guard commandants, Paul F. Zukunft and Linda L. Fagan, were stationed in Alameda before their promotions.