"A home in Oakland where tenants are allegedly being threatened with immigration enforcement by their landlord on Nov. 12, 2025. The East Oakland residents said their Bay Area-based landlord began a months-long harassment campaign over their immigration status after they rejected his buy-out offer. Tenants in East Oakland are suing their landlord, who they said threatened them with immigration enforcement to force them out of their homes."
""This was not a question - this was a threat," Hernandez said in Spanish at a press conference on Tuesday at the Alameda County Courthouse. "This was using immigration as a weapon to scare us and force us to abandon our home," she continued. Reyez Zarragoza said he turned down the buy-out offer in May, and then received a text from the same number claiming to be Chavis."
Tenants in East Oakland are suing their landlord for allegedly threatening them with immigration enforcement to force them out of their homes. Tenants rejected a buy-out offer and report receiving months-long harassment over their immigration status, including texts questioning legal status and warning that attorneys and checks were forthcoming. A tenant said the messages were threats and characterized immigration as a weapon to scare residents into abandoning their homes. State law prohibits landlords from threatening to report tenants to immigration officials. Advocates note that undocumented immigrants are particularly vulnerable to landlord neglect and retaliation when they raise maintenance or eviction concerns.
Read at Kqed
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