The federal government has agreed to temporarily suspend construction of a planned facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Northern California.
The voluntary pause until Sept. 9 comes after California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County officials sued the Trump administration last month to block the facility from being developed near Gilroy. The lawsuit is still ongoing.
“This pause in construction, demolition and development at the questioned ICE facility site is a significant step toward protecting our people, our communities and our environment while the case remains ongoing,” Bonta said in a statement Monday night.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State and local officials believe the center will be used for short-term detention of up to 150 people at a time, although ICE denied it was a detention center.
Community members and immigrant advocates quickly opposed the project. ICE has consistently sought to increase its detention capacity in California, where eight detention centers can now hold a total of 9,000 people, although the state has long been a thorn in the agency's side.
The suspension is part of a compromise between both parties involved in the legal action. After the state and county filed a request for the court to temporarily halt the project, a hearing was set for Oct. 7.
Now, state and federal officials have jointly requested that the court move up the hearing by at least a month. The agreement also extends the time the federal government has to respond.
A federal judge approved the agreement Monday night.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, alleges that the leased land is zoned exclusively for agricultural use and that the federal government violated laws requiring state and county notification and procedural steps before beginning construction.
