{"id":338750,"date":"2026-05-30T06:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338750\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T06:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:20:09","slug":"santa-clara-county-officials-vow-to-oppose-gilroy-ice-detention-center-the-pajaronian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338750\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Clara County officials vow to oppose Gilroy ICE detention center | The Pajaronian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>ICE OUT A group of protesters wave their signs from the Green Valley Road overcrossing to Highway 1 in Watsonville Friday. <\/p>\n

Santa Clara County officials, community organizers and residents gathered at the county government center in San Jose May 14 to oppose a federal plan to build an immigration detention facility on agricultural land just outside Gilroy city limits, vowing to fight the project in court and in the streets.<\/p>\n

The rally came days after public records surfaced showing the General Services Administration awarded a $26.5 million contract in January 2025 to an LLC connected to Elmwood Capital Group, a Beverly Hills-based real estate firm connected to other ICE detention centers, for a property at 7240 Holsclaw Road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The unincorporated parcel is roughly 11 miles south of an existing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Morgan Hill. County officials said they were not notified of the federal government\u2019s intention to build the facility.<\/p>\n

Santa Clara County Executive James Williams said the county\u2019s zoning ordinance does not permit detention facilities on the property and that his office intends to enforce that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe oppose any effort to build an immigration detention center anywhere in our county or across the Bay Area,\u201d Williams said. \u201cOur County Counsel\u2019s Office has a long track record of protecting our immigrant community against unlawful attacks by the federal government, and we know it will do everything in its power to do so in this case as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

County Counsel Tony LoPresti said his office has successfully litigated against federal immigration policy in multiple past cases, including challenging attempts to strip funding from sanctuary jurisdictions, defending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and opposing a citizenship question in the U.S. Census.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 15 years, we have collaborated with community organizations to develop the strongest non-cooperation\u2014so-called \u2018sanctuary\u2019\u2014policies in the nation,\u201d LoPresti said. \u201cWhy do we go to battle on these issues? Because immigrants are the bedrock of our community. Because an attack on the immigrant community is an attack on Santa Clara County.\u201d<\/p>\n

District 1 Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, who represents Gilroy, Morgan Hill and South San Jose, said the proposed facility represents an escalation of what she characterized as a federal campaign targeting immigrant families.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn attack on immigrants is an attack on all families,\u201d Arenas said. \u201cWhile they are trying to build in my district, the entire county will stand in opposition. We will fight any detention facility with every possible tool at our disposal, and we are absolutely ready to send our County Counsel to battle this out in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilroy City Council Member Zach Hilton issued a formal statement opposing the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe county\u2019s zoning ordinance doesn\u2019t allow this use,\u201d Hilton said, \u201cI have full confidence that they will not allow this project to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Community organizer Rebeca Armendariz, a former Gilroy City Council member, said construction workers were on the property this week installing privacy fencing and demolishing existing greenhouses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf their plans are to build an ICE facility there, our plans are to stop them,\u201d Armendariz said.<\/p>\n

Architect Reid Lerner, a longtime Gilroy resident familiar with the property, raised separate practical objections. The Holsclaw Road parcel sits in a flood zone, he said, making construction both costly and complicated. The site lacks connections to municipal sewer and water infrastructure, and the access road is narrow and winding, running alongside Llagas Creek.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good choice for building such a facility from a technical standpoint,\u201d Lerner said.<\/p>\n

Lerner also recalled this is not Elmwood Capital Group\u2019s first attempt to acquire a Gilroy property. During the first Trump administration, the firm sought to purchase another plot for GSA purposes, but the owner declined to sell.<\/p>\n

Gilroy Mayor Greg Bozzo, writing on Facebook, called the development a \u201cdisappointment,\u201d though he noted the site falls outside city jurisdiction. He reinforced that the Gilroy Police Department has not and will not participate in federal immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these difficult and uncertain times, I will do everything I can as Mayor of Gilroy to alleviate the fear and anxiety felt by so many,\u201d Bozzo wrote. \u201cIt is promising to know that so many people in South Santa Clara County care about each other. If any community can get through these times together, it\u2019s ours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ICE OUT A group of protesters wave their signs from the Green Valley Road overcrossing to Highway 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[187,2871,14,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-338750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-gilroy","tag-ice","tag-immigration","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}