Santa Clara County Leaders Say They’ll Fight Planned ICE Facility in Gilroy

Elected leaders and community members in Santa Clara County said they weren’t notified in January 2025 when the federal government leased a swath of unincorporated land near Gilroy with the intent to build a detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In fact, that information wasn’t publicly known until last month, after community members alerted the county, which conducted its own investigation.

On Thursday, Santa Clara County government officials and immigrant advocates held a rally at the Santa Clara County Government Center in San José, where they promised to defend immigrant communities and fight to stop a 4,000-square-foot ICE facility from being built.

“ The move to build a detention center in unincorporated Gilroy is an attack on the immigrant community, and it’s an attack on Santa Clara County,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said. He added that his office is coordinating with state Attorney General Rob Bonta as it prepares a legal defense to block the detention center. Zoning laws in the area do not allow for a detention center, he said.

“ To our knowledge, there’s been no effort whatsoever to notice the county or any other local government that we’re aware of,” LoPresti said.

Little is known about the project at 7240 Holsclaw Road, east of Gilroy Premium Outlets. LoPresti said that the country has confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security secured a $26.5 million lease for 24.5 acres over a 20-year period, and that the land is being leased from Elmwood Capital Group, a Beverly Hills-based entity associated with other detention centers.

Rebeca Armendariz, the director of movement building with Working Partnerships USA, and a former Gilroy city council member, said she witnessed construction workers on the property knocking down greenhouses and putting up fences this week.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson told KQED, “As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals,” but did not respond directly to questions about whether the department is building an ICE facility there, and what its purpose would be.

The spokesperson quoted the newly minted U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin.

During his recent confirmation hearings, Mullin said that he ‘will work with the community leaders and make sure that we are delivering for the American people what the President set out.”

“We want to work with community leaders,” Mullin added. “We want to be good partners.”

Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, whose district includes the planned detention center, said she hasn’t personally seen the Trump administration work with her community.

“ I don’t know where working with our community is coming from when you’re actually targeting our community as scapegoats and rounding us up in this way,” Arenas said, adding that her district includes large populations of immigrant farmworkers.

Opponents of the facility said increased immigration enforcement by the Trump administration was already negatively impacting their community, and that an additional ICE facility would only worsen the situation. Approximately 41% of Santa Clara County residents are foreign-born, according to recent census data.

“ We have a lot of laborers and farm workers, and it scares them to death,” said Debbie Bradshaw, a 74-year-old resident of Gilroy who has lived in the city for 50 years. “They don’t wanna go to work. They don’t wanna send their kids to school. It’s horrible. It’s frightening to everybody.”

Karsen Fricke, a San José native and college student, said the arrival of a new ICE facility in his backyard has him on edge.

“ Why would I want something that’s going to be used to hurt my neighbors and my friends so close?” Fricke said.

Immigrant advocates are also organizing to ensure that FCI Dublin, a recently shuttered women’s prison in Alameda County, isn’t converted into an ICE detention facility.

“ I’m terrified and anxious because I’ve experienced the heartbreaking pains of family separation,” said Kimberly Woo, a community organizer with SIREN, which is working to block ICE expansion in Gilroy and Dublin.

Woo said members of her family were detained last year, resulting in one being deported and the other self-deporting.

“ No one should experience this debilitating fear and gut-wrenching grief,” Woo said.

ICE already has a processing facility nearby in Morgan Hill. That facility already sees weekly protests, according to Morgan Hill City Councilwoman Yvonne Martínez Beltrán.

Martínez Beltrán said a detention center would hurt years of hard work aimed at bringing economic development to the area.

“ What fares better for a community, being known for tourism and agriculture, or being known for a detention center?” she said.

Ken Christopher, executive vice president of Christopher Ranch, a garlic farm that claims to be the largest employer in Gilroy, said the lack of communication by the federal government is causing confusion and fear.

“ Our community deserves better, and the fact that they weren’t part of the conversation, that’s the downfall,” Christopher said.

The rally’s organizers are planning a community briefing and organizing call on May 22.