South Bay leaders announce strategy to restrict private detention centers

• By Marianne Favro and Scott Budman

• Published August 5, 2026

On Wednesday, Bay Area city and county leaders announced a new strategy to try to keep detention centers out of the region. The move comes as ICE seeks to build a facility near Gilroy. Marianne Favro reports.

On Wednesday, Bay Area city and county leaders announced a new strategy to try to keep detention centers out of the region. The move comes as ICE seeks to build a facility near Gilroy.

After the lawsuit filed by the state and Santa Clara County on a proposed ICE facility near Gilroy has temporarily come to a halt, Bay Area leaders came together on Wednesday to announce a new strategy to keep detention centers out of the region.

San Jose is leading the way, with the city council slated to vote on a 45-day temporary moratorium on applications to build detention facilities on private property.

“We will first establish a moratorium on any new detention or processing facility developments in our city. When we have this moratorium in place, we will undertake an evaluation of the health, human safety and environmental impacts of these facilities,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said.

Bay Area Congressman Sam Liccardo says it's part of a so-called tool kit he established. He hopes it will give cities and counties a way to look at land use restrictions to keep detention centers out of the region by focusing on conditional use permits.

“There are a host of conditions that local communities can apply to a conditional use permit that will substantially impact the ability of ICE to build these facilities and, most importantly, the zoning power, to be able to say they cannot go, for example, in residentially-zoned areas. That's a powerful tool,” Liccardo said.

While federal law supersedes state and local rules, leaders here hope the new approach may offer a legal loophole to keep detention centers out.

Community advocates like Ayudando Latinos a Sonar CEO Belinda Arriaga and Jeremy Barouse with the Public Safety Committee (IPEN), who help immigrants, say they support the strategies especially if their applied throughout the region.

“We cannot stand one more child to be impacted by the horrors of ICE and detention,” Arriaga said.

“This rogue agency conducts warrantless searches, uses excessive force and operates with little legal oversight, when sometimes using children as bait to arrest family members,” Barouse said.

NBC Bay Area reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for a comment. In response, DHS issued a statement, saying, “We have no plans for new detention centers in the Silicon Valley region to announce at this time.” Adding that, “ICE has received additional funding for more detention space.”

San Jose wants to be the first city to put some of those anti-ICE laws into play. A proposal will go to the Rules and Open Government Committee on Aug. 12; after that, the San Jose City Council will vote on the temporary detention center moratorium on Sept. 15.