Gilroy and Morgan Hill Unified School Districts have joined a countywide wave of school boards formally opposing a proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility near Gilroy, with local leaders saying the fight extends far beyond district lines.
GUSD was the first school district in Santa Clara County to adopt a resolution against the facility, with the board of education having adopted it on May 28. MHUSD followed Aug. 20.
The two districts were among those represented Sept. 2 at a press conference at the Santa Clara County Government Center in San Jose, where county and school officials announced that 15 school boards across the county have now adopted similar resolutions. Officials also announced that a joint letter opposing the facility has been signed by more than 50 trustees and superintendents.
Tuyen Fiack, Gilroy Unified’s board president, said the district felt an obligation to act first because the facility is proposed for its own community.
“For Gilroy, it was especially important that we lead, because the proposed detention facility is coming to our community, to South County—and too often, South County has had to fight to make sure our voices are heard in regional conversations,” Fiack said. “This time, Gilroy spoke early and clearly. We said that our community should be known for what we build for our children, not for where we detain families.”
Fiack said the issue quickly grew beyond one city. Santa Clara County’s public schools serve about 229,000 students, and more than 165,000 of them live in mixed-immigration-status households, according to figures Fiack attributed to the Santa Clara County Office of Education.
“Our students do not live their lives according to district boundaries,” Fiack said, noting that families often have relatives spread across Gilroy, Morgan Hill, San Jose and beyond. “That is why seeing school districts across the county stand in solidarity matters.”
MHUSD Superintendent Dr. Carmen Garcia, who described herself as an immigrant and the daughter of teachers who believed in her, said the threat of the detention facility is not abstract for families in her district.
“The consequences will permeate into their school, shaping their learning, their goals, and their sense of efficacy and self-worth, leading to trauma, anxiety, possible chronic absenteeism and disengagement,” Garcia said.
Garcia said roughly 8,000 students and 800 employees are part of the Morgan Hill Unified community, and that legal status “does not matter” in how the district treats students.
“We ask our community at large to reject” the argument that immigrants are criminals, Garcia said. “It distracts from their humanity and their contributions.”
The proposed facility, planned near Gilroy, has been the subject of litigation for months. County Counsel Tony LoPresti and California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit earlier this summer seeking to halt its development, and county officials said Sept. 2 that more than 10 lawsuits have now been filed against the federal government over the project.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Sylvia Arenas, whose district includes part of South County, said the board has also pursued a no-staging policy, which she described as an “ICE-free zone” restricting county property from being used to stage civil immigration enforcement operations.
