California and Santa Clara County have gone to federal court to stop a planned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Gilroy, alleging the federal government and a private developer pushed ahead with construction on protected agricultural land without required environmental review, public disclosure or meaningful consultation with local officials.

The lawsuit was announced by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti and filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It targets a project at 7240 Holsclaw Road, an unincorporated rural property near Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County, where state and county officials say land is being converted for ICE use despite legal restrictions and unresolved environmental and infrastructure concerns.

The complaint seeks to block construction and operation of the facility, void the federal lease and require the federal government and property owner to comply with federal and state law before any project moves forward. The defendants identified in public reporting include ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the General Services Administration and ECG 6 LLC, the private property owner tied to Elmwood Capital Group.

State officials say the January 2025 lease was framed as supporting an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office, but they argue the project functions as far more than administrative space. According to the lawsuit and local reporting, plans for the site include detainee processing areas, holding cells, visitation rooms, an armory and other features associated with detention operations. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the complaint describes a facility capable of holding up to 150 people and supporting about 60 federal employees.

The state and county allege that federal officials obscured the true nature of the project by describing it in earlier communications as “office and operations space” and failing to disclose a detention component. County officials say the limited notice prevented local agencies from assessing the project’s consequences for zoning, roads, water, waste systems, flood risk, habitat and agricultural protections before demolition and construction activity began.

The legal challenge rests on several statutes. The plaintiffs say the federal government violated the National Environmental Policy Act by committing to the lease and beginning work without first preparing an environmental assessment or a more detailed environmental impact statement. They also claim the project violates the Immigration and Nationality Act because the location is not appropriate for detention, citing its agricultural zoning, protected-land status and environmental sensitivity.

The complaint also invokes the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, arguing that federal agencies failed to seek and consider state and county views before advancing the project. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the plaintiffs ask the court to set aside federal action they say was unlawful. Separately, they cite California’s Williamson Act, a state program that restricts certain lands to agricultural and compatible uses in exchange for property tax benefits. State officials say the Holsclaw Road property has been protected for agricultural use for decades and that the owner did not complete required steps to remove or modify those restrictions.

The dispute carries immediate local stakes. The property sits in a rural area outside Gilroy, a South County city surrounded by agricultural operations and immigrant communities. San José Spotlight first reported in May that federal records pointed to a detention center planned at the Holsclaw Road site, about 11 miles south of an ICE field office in Morgan Hill. The outlet later reported that blueprints confirmed ICE involvement and showed detention and processing space.

Local officials and advocates have argued that the site is ill-suited for detention operations. The lawsuit says development could damage habitat and agricultural value, strain wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, worsen roadway conditions and create public health risks. The Chronicle reported that the complaint also cites the property’s proximity to sensitive wildlife habitat, its location within a flood plain and the presence of hazardous materials connected to prior agricultural research uses.

The state’s filing escalates a confrontation that had already drawn public opposition from local leaders and immigrant-rights advocates. Santa Clara County has maintained sanctuary-style policies and has previously challenged federal attempts to pressure local governments into supporting immigration enforcement. County leaders have also taken steps to restrict the use of county property for immigration enforcement operations and to coordinate responses to ICE activity.

Bonta framed the case as both a legal challenge and a response to what California officials view as a rapid federal expansion of immigration detention capacity under President Donald Trump. In the state’s announcement, Bonta said ICE offices have become “mini-detention centers” despite being unequipped for long-term holding, and he criticized what he described as secrecy surrounding the project. LoPresti said the county was opposing an attempt to build an ICE facility on sensitive protected land without regard to environmental and community impacts.

The federal government has not yet laid out a full public legal defense in the case. Earlier, San José Spotlight reported that a DHS spokesperson said the agency had no new detention centers to announce at that time while also saying ICE was making arrests around the country and working to expand detention space. That statement did not specifically confirm the Holsclaw Road project as a detention center.

The lawsuit comes amid a wider national fight over immigration enforcement infrastructure, local cooperation and federal authority. In California, immigration detention has been a recurring flashpoint, with state officials, advocacy groups and local governments raising concerns over conditions, access to counsel, medical care and the conversion of existing sites for immigration use. The Gilroy-area case is narrower in its legal claims, focusing on environmental review, land-use protections, consultation requirements and the validity of the lease, but the political context is broader.

For Santa Clara County, the case also tests whether local land-use and environmental protections can meaningfully constrain a federal project tied to immigration enforcement. For the federal government, the case could affect how quickly agencies can lease or repurpose private properties for immigration operations when state and local officials oppose the project. The immediate question for the court will be whether construction can continue while the legal challenge proceeds.

If the plaintiffs secure an injunction, work at the site could be halted pending environmental review and further litigation. If the court declines to intervene early, state and county officials may still pursue the underlying claims, but the facility could move closer to completion while the case unfolds. The lawsuit asks the court not only to stop construction, but also to require compliance with federal review laws and local rules before the site is used for ICE operations.

The case is likely to draw close attention across California because it combines immigration enforcement, environmental review and agricultural land preservation in one dispute. It also adds another legal fight to the expanding docket between Democratic-led state and local governments and the Trump administration over immigration policy. For residents near Gilroy, however, the central issue is immediate: whether a rural property long associated with farming can be transformed into a federal immigration processing and detention site without the scrutiny normally required for a project of that scale.