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The judge reviewing a lawsuit seeking to block a proposed ICE facility in south Santa Clara County has deferred a ruling on a preliminary injunction asking for a temporary halt to construction work.
The Tuesday decision from Northern District of California Judge Eumi Lee means it may take another week or more until she renders her final ruling on the matter. She delivered the decision following an afternoon hearing to review a request to block development at the site just east of Gilroy until after the overarching lawsuit has been resolved.
Lee is expected to review the arguments in the case, and then, next Tuesday, take further action. That action could either take the form of a final ruling on the injunction request, or providing instructions that will set the terms of further negotiations between both sides over how a construction pause should be carried out.
The Tuesday hearing, which took place in San Jose’s federal courthouse, is the first court date in the high-profile proceedings stemming from a lawsuit brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County against the federal government.
At the center of the legal dispute is the federal government’s plan to create an immigration enforcement facility on unincorporated county land. The project, which would create new office space and detention facilities, would support the work of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
While Lee issued a tentative ruling last Friday suggesting that she favors granting plaintiffs’ requests for the preliminary injunction, Tuesday’s decision leaves the issue still unresolved.
“Even though we don’t have a final ruling yet from the court, the signs that we heard today in the hearing are incredibly encouraging,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said outside the courthouse following the decision. “They reflect what we saw in the court’s tentative order that the federal government has violated the law — that they have tried to move this project through in secrecy without taking the required steps that they had to take in order to move forward legally.”
Under Lee’s decisions, federal attorneys have agreed to maintain an existing temporary halt on work at the 7240 Holsclaw Road property until next Tuesday.
If state and county officials prevail, the block would remain in place until a final ruling is delivered in the court battle, a process that could take years to play out, according to legal experts.
Negotiations between the county and state over the ultimate scope of the preliminary injunction could grant the federal government the option of carrying out limited activities on the Holsclaw Road property, such as maintenance and security work. However, county officials have indicated they would not consent to an agreement that included further construction of the proposed facility.
Opponents of the facility have marked the recent court developments as victories in their campaign to thwart the project. Advocates and elected leaders from the South Bay as well as Monterey County staged a rally outside the courthouse just before the hearing began.
“Our voices matter. Our resistance matters, and we will not stop until this project is stopped,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, who represents South County where the ICE facility is planned, said before the hearing. “We are here to declare that our community is not a target, not a zone of fear, not a site for injustice, because we will defend our home. We will do this by combating hate and fear with love and collective action.”
Among the demonstrators who turned out was Sunnyvale resident Will Kaku, who sees parallels between the federal government’s mass immigration sweeps and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, which touched his own family. Kaku said he is encouraged by the number of people who turned out for the courthouse demonstration.
“I’m very enthusiastic. It’s a weekday, and all these people showed up, and people are very upset,” Kaku told San José Spotlight. “People do not like to see their communities being terrorized by the tactics of this administration. People don’t like to see the loss of civil liberties and loss of due process. There’s a lot of outrage.”
Detention space in the planned facility would be large enough to hold more than 100 people, according to county officials who have reviewed the federal government’s plans. Revelations about the facility, which first surfaced in May, have stoked fears that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for more expansive immigration enforcement operations in the Bay Area, amid a nationwide campaign of mass deportation.
The lawsuit, filed in June, argues the federal government has failed to conduct environmental reviews or consult with state and local authorities as required by federal mandates laid out in the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Plaintiffs also contend the facility violates zoning rules that reserve the property exclusively for agricultural uses.
The 25-acre parcel likely contains hazardous materials due to its history of use for agricultural research, according to the complaint outlining the state and county’s case.
In their own filings, federal attorneys have asserted the detention facilities will be far less expansive than portrayed in the lawsuit. They claim the space will be used only to hold and process about 10 people on a temporary basis as they await immigration proceedings.
Federal officials have also pushed back against the environmental concerns. They argue the project should be exempt from federal environmental review requirements because the site already houses an office building, and the proposed ICE facility will not significantly change how the land has been used.
The federal government’s defense attorneys repeatedly questioned why the county waited until filing the lawsuit to begin raising questions about environmental safety at the site despite the documented risks. They suggested lag time indicates the lawsuit stems from opposition to the federal government’s immigration policy, rather than genuine concern about the environment.
“They have had years and years to inspect before, and have not explained why they have delayed,” Krystal-Rose Perez, a senior trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, said during the hearing.
At several points, Lee posed skeptical questions to the defense, indicating strenuous doubts about the core contentions undergirding the federal government’s case.
“Tell me how a change from agricultural research to immigration enforcement is not a change in use,” Lee asked the federal government’s defense attorneys at one point.
Despite the addition of detention facilities, which Perez termed a “holding area,” defense attorneys said the new development will primarily resemble an office park.
“Generally it will remain the same,” Perez said.
This story was written by Keith Menconi for San José Spotlight. The original version of this article can be viewed here.
Contact Keith Menconi at keith@sanjosespotlight.com or @KeithMenconi on X.
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