Opinion: The Trump Administration Tried to Build an ICE Site Near Gilroy Without Following the Law. The Bay Area Should Keep Saying No.

On a 24.5-acre parcel at 7240 Holsclaw Road, just east of Gilroy, the Trump administration has been trying to build a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement site. The federal government leased the land in January 2025, according to California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office. By the time most South County residents learned about it, construction was already underway.

That order of events is the problem. On Sept. 11, U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee granted a preliminary injunction halting construction, finding that California and Santa Clara County are likely to succeed in their lawsuit, the attorney general's office said. The state and county argue that the government skipped the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act and never consulted state or local officials.

We think the court got it right, and we think the administration should take the hint.

What the government says

Fairness requires laying out the federal position. ICE describes the site as new offices to replace its Morgan Hill office, along with a short-term holding area for up to 10 people for no more than 12 hours, not a detention center, CBS San Francisco reported. In an August court filing, federal attorneys called the lawsuit "an 800-page stack of questionable assumptions" and rejected the state and county's claim that the site could hold as many as 150 people, San José Spotlight reported.

But the same filing also said, "Maximum occupancy of the facility will be determined once remodeling is complete." That sentence is the whole case for environmental review. If the government cannot yet say how many people it will hold on land served by a septic system that the state says was designed for much smaller use, and that has been protected for agricultural use since the 1960s, then the public is owed the analysis before the concrete is poured, not after.

Why the process matters

Environmental review is not a technicality. It is how a community learns whether a septic system built for a nursery can handle a federal operation, what happens to nearby farmland and habitat, and what traffic and emergency services a project will need. The attorney general's office says the build-out risks overwhelming that septic system and releasing hazardous materials. The government may disagree. The law says to answer those questions in public, and the administration chose not to.

"The Trump Administration tried to rush construction of this facility in secret, ignoring environmental safeguards and shutting out the communities that would bear the consequences," Bonta said after the ruling. That is a political statement, but a federal judge has now found the state's legal arguments strong enough to stop the work.

A community that has spoken

Gilroy's leaders have been unanimous. The City Council passed a resolution on June 1 calling the facility incompatible with the region's agricultural, tourism and economic plans, and on Oct. 5 it unanimously adopted a temporary moratorium on new detention facilities inside city limits, the Gilroy Dispatch reported. The moratorium cannot reach Holsclaw Road, which sits in unincorporated county land, and federal agencies can often override local zoning. Not every resident agrees: former Councilmember Cat Tucker wrote that she saw no imminent threat justifying an urgency measure, San José Spotlight reported. That debate is healthy. It is exactly the kind of local conversation the federal government skipped.

Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and reasonable people disagree about how it should work. But an administration that says it stands for law and order should be able to follow the National Environmental Policy Act like every other builder. Families in South County, many of them immigrants who already live with real fear about enforcement, deserve to know what is being built next to them and why.

Our view is simple. The administration should stop fighting the court and either start over in the open, with full environmental review and real consultation with Santa Clara County and Gilroy, or walk away from Holsclaw Road. Until then, Bay Area officials are right to keep saying no, and to keep saying it in court.