Feds say South County ICE facility will hold minimal detainees

Federal officials say a planned ICE facility in South County will typically house about 10 detainees, according to the most detailed official statement yet released outlining the project.

New court documents filed last week lay out the legal response to a lawsuit seeking to block the facility, and claim detention space will be used only to temporarily hold and process foreign nationals facing immigration proceedings.

The filing — which describes the lawsuit brought by Santa Clara County and state officials as “an 800-page stack of questionable assumptions” — pushes back on the bevy of environmental concerns that have been raised against the project. It also rejects the claim advanced by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and County Counsel Tony LoPresti that the facility on unincorporated land just east of Gilroy could be used to hold as many as 150 detainees.

While asserting that the facility, described as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, would generally hold 10 detainees at any given time, federal officials also left open the possibility that its maximum capacity could change after the property’s owner wraps up construction work at the site.

“Maximum occupancy of the facility will be determined once remodeling is complete,” U.S. attorneys wrote in the filing.

Revelations about the planned facility, first reported by this news organization in May, have sent shockwaves throughout the Bay Area, fueling concerns that ICE may be preparing to expand the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign locally. San José Spotlight later uncovered blueprints for the facility that outlined plans for an immigration center that would include detainee processing areas, as well as interview and holding rooms.

The new construction work would add more office space within an existing building, create a sally port to provide entry to an outdoor holding area and introduce perimeter fencing, according to the new filing.

The document confirms that ICE is relying on the planned facility at 7240 Holsclaw Road to buttress local immigration enforcement operations. It warns that if the facility is delayed, such operations could face disruptions given that the lease for ICE’s Morgan Hill field office is set to expire later this month.

The lawsuit, filed in June, alleges the federal government illegally bypassed environmental laws, local zoning rules and other statutes in advancing the Holsclaw project. A hearing to consider plaintiff’s preliminary injunction seeking a court order to block construction work as the case proceeds is set for Sept. 8 at San Jose’s federal courthouse. Federal officials already agreed to temporarily halt the work until the hearing takes place.

Responding to the filing, state and county officials expressed confidence in their lawsuit.

“The federal government wants the court to endorse an act-now-think-later approach to a development that will have a profound and lasting negative impact on the environment and the community,” representatives of Bonta and LoPresti told San José Spotlight.

In their filing, U.S. attorneys argue the project should be exempt from federal environmental review requirements because the 25-acre parcel already houses an office building, and the proposed ICE facility will not significantly change how the land has been used.

The complaint that undergirds the June lawsuit claims that decades of agricultural research at the site has likely left behind hazardous materials that could be disturbed by development work. But federal officials contend there is no evidence of continued contamination, and they also question why local authorities have waited until now to address the problem if the environmental threat is so severe.

“Plaintiffs’ own brief alleges that they knew the prior owners of the Holsclaw Property engaged in pesticide research and mismanaged hazardous materials at the site for decades, apparently without Plaintiffs attempting to shut down those businesses,” the filing reads.

State and county officials have alleged the project was advanced in secrecy, violating federal laws requiring consultations with local authorities.

But the filing also contends that a leasing agent for the property owner — an LLC belonging to development firm Elmwood Capital Group — contacted county officials by early 2023 about the possibility the land would be leased to the federal government. County officials responded that “there should be no zoning problems with the federal government’s planned use,” according to the federal government’s account.

Local advocates who have organized under the banner of the ICE Out of Gilroy Coalition expressed skepticism about the federal government’s description in the filing of the planned uses for the facility.

“I don’t believe for a second that they’re only going to be housing 10 people at any given moment,” Huy Tran, executive director of Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network, part of the coalition, told San José Spotlight. “With (the Department of Homeland Security) operating the way it does, with ICE operating the way it does, this kind of appears to be the mantra: ‘If they build it, they will fill it.’”

Contact Keith Menconi at [email protected] or @KeithMenconi on X.