San Jose's city council voted unanimously to slam a 45-day moratorium on any new private detention facility proposals within city limits, directing staff to draft permanent zoning rules that could keep the freeze in place for up to two years. The move, championed by U.S. Representative Sam Liccardo, comes as fears mount that the federal government could try to expand immigration detention operations across the South Bay.
According to San José Spotlight, San Jose currently has no specific land-use or zoning rules governing privately run detention centers, a gap the council now wants closed. Mayor Matt Mahan signed the memo behind the moratorium proposal alongside councilmembers Pamela Campos, Peter Ortiz, Domingo Candelas, and Bien Doan, and Mahan said the city must protect residents, human health and safety, and mitigate environmental impacts. The moratorium includes narrow exceptions and will stop the city from processing applications for private-land detention center development, though it does not cover projects on public land — Mahan has already asked staff to draft a separate amendment covering that gap, which could reach the council in the coming weeks.
Why City Hall Is Worried About Water, Traffic and Emergency Crews
City staff will conduct a policy review that could update the zoning code and permitting processes, addressing concerns that private detention centers could increase demands on the sewage system, local water resources, traffic infrastructure, and emergency services. The same report notes that private detention facilities raise additional operational and safety considerations beyond typical commercial development. State and federal properties remain outside San Jose's regulatory jurisdiction, meaning the moratorium's reach is limited to privately owned parcels within city boundaries.
The backdrop for San Jose's action sits just south of the city, where the federal government has been pursuing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, including detention space, on unincorporated land east of Gilroy. A federal judge already granted a request to pause construction there. On September 11, U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee issued a preliminary injunction halting work at the proposed Gilroy site at 7240 Holsclaw Road, ruling that state and county plaintiffs were likely to succeed on claims that federal officials failed to conduct required environmental reviews, according to SFGate. The 23-page ruling cited potential carcinogen exposure tied to the site's history as a decades-old seed research facility, as reported by KQED.
A $27 Million Lease Nobody Saw Coming
Construction at the South County facility remains paused, but the injunction permits limited activities addressing immediate safety concerns, including maintenance and security work, and allows an environmental review to proceed. Blueprints for the site reportedly include detention and processing areas, tactical equipment storage, and weapons and ammunition rooms. The scale of the project traces back to a January 2025 lease award to Beverly Hills-based ECG 6 LLC reportedly valued at roughly $27 million for the 25-acre Gilroy parcel. Hoodline first reported on the site's discovery and Santa Clara County's vow to sue back in May.
San Jose's strategy leans on legal ground that dates back a century. Liccardo's August 2026 land-use toolkit explicitly cites the 1926 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., which established that local governments hold constitutional police power to govern health, safety, environmental impacts, and zoning, according to CBS News. That approach exists because past attempts to outright ban immigration detention centers have not held up in court — Governor Gavin Newsom signed a statewide ban on such facilities in 2019, but an en banc panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2022 that the law, Assembly Bill 32, violated the Supremacy Clause by overriding federal immigration enforcement authority, per Courthouse News.
Not Every County Is Following the Same Playbook
Not every South Bay government is taking the same path. Santa Clara County has no plans to adopt a similar moratorium, with Supervisor Betty Duong saying the county's existing land-use policies already include safeguards stronger than Liccardo's model, per the San José Spotlight report. Napa County and San Mateo County have advanced similar moratoriums of their own, and San Mateo's Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an interim urgency ordinance under California Government Code Section 65858 in August to temporarily halt new detention facility proposals while staff draft permanent rules, Hoodline previously reported.
The pattern extends beyond the South Bay. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution in April opposing federal efforts to convert the shuttered Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin — closed in 2024 following facility misconduct — into an ICE detention facility. Nationally, Howard County, Maryland revoked building permits in February to block a similar conversion, and Glenwood Springs, Colorado enacted emergency land-use controls in August to stop warehouse conversions into detention facilities, illustrating that zoning pushback has become a national blueprint against private federal detention expansion.
Residents Push Council to Act, State Lawmakers Add Oversight
At the council meeting, Misrayn Mendoza urged councilmembers to adopt the moratorium to protect local immigrants, saying the city has a duty to protect every resident's safety. The pressure comes as a Republican-dominated Congress approved a spending package supporting President Donald Trump's immigration agenda that includes $45 billion for new immigration detention facilities. Federal detention data from 2026 shows roughly 74% of people in ICE custody nationwide have no criminal convictions, while community-based at-large arrests increased 600% year-over-year, context that has driven Bay Area municipal leaders toward preemptive action.
California lawmakers have moved on a parallel track. In August, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 942 to set health and safety standards for private detention centers, alongside separate legislation requiring public disclosure of 911 emergency call logs from civil immigrant detention facilities statewide. Liccardo is urging more cities and counties to adopt his playbook, but he has cautioned that the ordinances work only before ICE approaches a community — once a lease is signed, the leverage narrows considerably.
