Top image: Mountain View City Hall. Photo: Aleh Haiko / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Mountain View has no immigration detention center, and city officials would like to keep it that way. On Oct. 13, the City Council unanimously approved an urgency ordinance placing a temporary moratorium on filing, accepting, processing or approving applications to establish detention, custodial or processing facilities in the city, the Mountain View Voice reported.

The ordinance took effect immediately but lasts only 45 days, through Nov. 27. The council can extend it for up to 22 months and 15 days while staff study the potential impacts of detention centers and draft permanent land-use rules, according to the Oct. 13 staff report cited by the Voice. It exempts routine law enforcement and a list of ordinary activities, including hospitals that temporarily limit a patient’s movement, supervision at schools, child care and residential care facilities, and judicial hearing locations.

“This is a zoning change,” Councilmember Pat Showalter said. “This is within our powers.”

From a Gilroy fight to a regional toolkit

The ordinance grows out of a legal battle at the south end of the county. In June, Mountain View signed onto a legal brief supporting a lawsuit by state Attorney General Rob Bonta and Santa Clara County challenging construction of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Gilroy. Last month, U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee ordered ICE to temporarily halt construction there until an environmental review is completed, the Voice reported.

After that ruling, Rep. Sam Liccardo published a toolkit to help local governments use zoning to make it harder for ICE to build or acquire detention facilities. A core recommendation is to define detention, custodial and processing facilities explicitly in local zoning codes and declare them not an allowable use. Mountain View’s ordinance adopts those definitions while buying time to write a permanent version. According to Liccardo’s office, Gilroy and San Jose, along with San Mateo, Monterey and Napa counties, have adopted similar ordinances.

Residents who spoke Oct. 13 said they feared ICE would look elsewhere in the region after the Gilroy setback. “The threat is real and immediate,” said Melissa Dinwoodie, founder and president of Indivisible Palo Alto Plus. Two City Council candidates, Erik Poicon and James Kuszmaul, also backed the measure.

Earlier this year, Mountain View banned ICE from using city-owned or city-controlled property for civil immigration enforcement. It is also among the jurisdictions that have cut ties with Flock Safety, the license plate camera vendor whose cameras critics say have been used to target immigrants.

Across the county line

The Peninsula is moving on parallel tracks. The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors’ Oct. 20 agenda includes a consent item asking the county health officer to inspect detention facilities at San Francisco International Airport under state health law and report findings to the board and the state Board of State and Community Corrections. The same agenda includes the Sheriff’s Office’s report on immigration detainers, required under county ordinance.

The long view

The strategy is a sign of how local governments are adapting. Cities cannot direct federal immigration policy, but they control land use, building permits, public health inspections and their own data contracts. Mountain View’s ordinance, Santa Clara County’s environmental-review lawsuit in Gilroy and San Mateo County’s inspection request all use those ordinary powers for an extraordinary purpose.

Whether that approach holds up will depend on courts. Federal agencies have broad authority, and land-use restrictions aimed at a specific federal function may draw legal challenges. For now, the South Bay and Peninsula are building what amounts to a layered defense, written not in sanctuary declarations but in zoning definitions and agenda items. In a region known for routing around obstacles in code, its cities are now doing something similar in municipal law.

Sources: Mountain View Voice (Oct. 15, 2026); San José Spotlight (Oct. 6, 2026); San Mateo County Board of Supervisors agenda (Oct. 20, 2026).