As Mayor, I believe one of my most important responsibilities is to listen to Gilroy residents, understand their concerns and take meaningful action on how best to serve our community. The proposed immigration facility outside Gilroy’s city limits has raised serious concern in our community, with residents expressing fear and uncertainty about what it could mean for themselves, their families and their neighbors.
Those concerns deserve our attention and a thoughtful sustained response.
The Gilroy City Council has unanimously opposed the proposed immigration facility and unanimously adopted an urgency ordinance prohibiting detention and custodial facility development within Gilroy; this includes immigration facilities. These actions reflect our commitment to our community’s well-being and our continued efforts to use the City’s authority to support the people who call Gilroy home.
Recently, the Council considered a proposed policy that would prohibit City-owned or controlled property from being used as staging areas for federal immigration enforcement. Community members have shared their fears and concerns, and those concerns deserve careful consideration as we determine what the City can legally and effectively do to support our community.
As elected officials, we have a responsibility to take these concerns seriously and carefully evaluate how our decisions can help. That means pursuing policies that are practical, enforceable and legally defensible, while considering their potential consequences.
Our goal is to turn our commitment to the community into actions that can make a meaningful difference.
Part of that responsibility is being clear with our community about where the City has authority to act and where federal law may limit our options. These limits to local control can be frustrating, especially when residents are looking to local leaders for reassurance and protection.
Federal law can supersede conflicting local laws, particularly in an area such as immigration enforcement, which is primarily a federal responsibility. At the same time, cities retain significant authority over local property, planning and land use. Carefully evaluating those powers and limits helps us identify actions that can effectively support our residents.
We have seen the value of a focused legal strategy by the State of California’s and Santa Clara County’s court challenge of the proposed immigration facility. Public reporting indicates that the State and County’s legal approach focused on viable legal grounds rather than directly challenging federal supremacy, recognizing that the latter was not a promising path.
I attended the federal court proceedings where Judge Eumi K. Lee granted a preliminary injunction which halted construction of the facility while the case proceeds. To me, this shows why we need to focus on actions that can stand up in court and make a meaningful difference for our community.
I believe Gilroy’s urgency ordinance prohibiting the development of detention and custodial facilities here has a strong legal foundation because it rests on local land-use authority, zoning and established planning procedures.
A policy restricting federal immigration enforcement on City property raises questions about whether this restriction would be legally enforceable. Residents deserve policies that address their concerns and hold up in court.
Residents have asked what they can count on from their local Police Department during this time of uncertainty. Chief Brandon Sanchez has repeatedly stated that the Gilroy Police Department will do everything within its authority to protect our citizens, including preventing federal authorities from using City property for their operations. Through established relationships, communication and de-escalation, our Police Department will continue working to support our community, building on its efforts during previous periods of heightened immigration enforcement in 2012 and 2017.
Over the past four months, I have stood alongside Chief Sanchez at multiple town hall meetings with more than 1,000 community members, many of whom are directly affected by these concerns. These conversations have provided opportunities to listen, answer difficult questions and reaffirm Gilroy’s commitment to its residents. I value his leadership and willingness to engage directly with our community.
That commitment continues as we consider the best path forward. Although the Council is not moving forward with the no-staging policy at this time, we remain responsible for seeking effective ways to support our community within our legal authority.
I recognize that this direction may be disappointing to residents who supported the proposal, especially those seeking reassurance for themselves, their families and their neighbors. Their concerns deserve our continued attention.
In the coming months, we will keep listening, communicating openly about our options and evaluating additional steps the City can take to support our residents.
Ultimately, I believe we share an important goal: upholding the values that define our community and supporting the people who call it home. Our City Council has twice unanimously opposed immigration facilities, and I have consistently expressed my opposition in public statements published in local and regional publications.
Even where we disagree about the best legal and practical ways to respond, our shared commitment to Gilroy gives us a foundation to keep working together. As Mayor, I will continue listening to our residents, pursuing effective ways to support them and upholding the values that make Gilroy a community we are proud to call home.
Greg Bozzo is the Mayor of Gilroy.
Well said, sensitive analysis with a realistic understanding federal authority and legal supremacy.
Am sorry to say I had a yard sign for you last election. Will not make that mistake again.
The work ethic generally practiced by new immigrants and migrants is commendable, perhaps even exceptional. This also applies to their employment with the produce harvesting sector. And there, the jobseeker likely also finds that big business greed insatiably always seeks the cheapest labor possible and migrants are an expedient means to this goal.
Nevertheless, it’s back-breaking work that almost all second and third (etcetera) generation Westerners won’t tolerate for themselves, myself included. I can truly imagine such laborers being more productive than their born-and-reared-here counterparts.
I’m not implying that a strong work ethic is a trait racially genetically inherited by one generation from a preceding generation, etcetera. Rather, it’s an admirable culturally determined factor, though also in large part motivated by the said culture’s internal and surrounding economic and political conditions.
However, I believe that once they’ve resided here for a number of decades, their strong work ethics and higher-than-average productivity, unfortunately, gradually diminishes as these motivated laborers’ descendant generations’ young people become accustomed to the relatively more slackened Western way of life.
I have already witnessed this effect in such youth getting caught up in much of our overall urban/suburban liberal culture — e.g. attire, lingo, nightlife, as well as work. Indeed, Western ‘values’ assimilation often means the unfortunate acquisition of a distasteful yet strong sense of entitlement.
Ergo, welcome to Western culture!
PostScript: Interestingly yet disturbingly enough, before people of color became the primary source of newcomers to the U.S. and Canada, thick-accented Eastern Europeans were targeted with meanspirited Anglo-Saxon bigotry. As a broken-English, 1950s Eastern-European immigrant to Canada, my (now long-deceased) father experienced such discrimination or at least attempts made to do so against him.
Hypothetically, if Canada and the U.S. were to revert back to a primarily Caucasian populace, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eastern Europeans with a thick Slavic accent would eventually again become the main target of bigotry within the dominant Euro-Canadian/American ethnicity/populace.