{"id":5654,"date":"2026-07-28T11:06:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5654"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:06:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T11:06:54","slug":"bhasin-gulag-in-gilroy-finally-some-nimbyism-i-can-get-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5654","title":{"rendered":"Bhasin: Gulag in Gilroy: Finally, some NIMBYism I can get behind"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p><span>The NIMBY crowd has gotten a bad rap in the Bay Area.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Between helping to prevent the construction of new housing, keep housing prices high, exacerbate homelessness, perpetuate economic and racial segregation, delay green energy, hinder public transit access, restrict social services, weaponize the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and encourage suburban sprawl, it\u2019s safe to say that nobody likes these guys.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5652\">Chabria: Newsom pushes California to crack down on sex trafficking \u2014 fast<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Given all of this, you would have been hard pressed to find a cause that NIMBYism might be lauded for. Something to help shift its tarnished reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And yet here we have California and Santa Clara County <\/span><span>suing<\/span><span> the Trump administration in order to stop the construction of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility just outside of Gilroy. On July 13, the federal government <\/span><span>paused<\/span><span> construction of the facility while it prepares a response.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Classic moves<\/h4>\n<p><span>The lawsuit is pulling some classic bits from the NIMBY playbook. It\u2019s trying to snag the federal government on technicalities like neglecting to provide an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement and claiming the land is meant only for agricultural use.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You see, the state and county aren\u2019t against the Trump administration opening a prison camp designed to dehumanize immigrants. Like any good NIMBY, they\u2019re worried about \u201cthe environment\u201d and \u201canimal welfare.\u201d Just like <\/span><span>Woodside<\/span><span> was when they stopped the construction of housing by invoking the well-being of their mountain lions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Because they\u2019re suing the feds, these NIMBYs aren\u2019t citing CEQA, but they\u2019ve got something even better: NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). According to the lawsuit, the federal government failed to \u201canalyze the project\u2019s environmental consequences before approving the lease and beginning construction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>California and Santa Clara County are also invoking the Administrative Procedure Act, which is NIMBY to the core. There\u2019s nothing NIMBYs like more than bogging people down in administrative procedure. (Just look at the <\/span><span>Cape Wind project<\/span><span> in Massachusetts.)<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>And then there\u2019s the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, which basically nails the federal government for not consulting with the county or state on the project. (Like Palatine saying <\/span><span>no thanks<\/span><span> to a Postal Service facility.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>They\u2019re also throwing the Williamson Act at the feds, which is meant to protect agricultural land. (Apologies to solar energy projects in <\/span><span>San Benito<\/span><span> and <\/span><span>Alameda<\/span><span> counties.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Their lawsuit also mentions the Immigration and Nationality Act, arguing that the facility isn\u2019t an \u201cappropriate place of detention\u201d because \u201cthreatened species\u201d live on that land. (Remember Woodside\u2019s mountain lions?)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5650\">Mathews: How California lost to Morocco in high-speed rail<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>It is thrilling to watch the NIMBY smokescreen being used for good instead of evil. I hope the federal government likes to conduct years-long environmental reviews, because that\u2019s where they\u2019re headed.<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>Donald Trump, star of \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d has evaded accountability at every possible level of society, in this life and probably the next, but he\u2019s never come face-to-face with Bay Area NIMBYs. I bet the very idea of it has him falling asleep in national security briefings or babbling incoherently about rigged elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>American malice<\/h4>\n<p><span>Of course, when it comes to ICE\u2019s for-profit internment camps, I\u2019m less of a NIMBY and more of a NIABYSTCAHTN (Not In Anyone\u2019s Backyard Start The Crimes Against Humanity Trials Now). These concrete monuments to American malice have been built to satisfy a xenophobic bloodlust fueled by this administration and the worst of us in society who support or ignore it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Despite administration propaganda, detainees aren\u2019t the \u201cworst of the worst.\u201d <\/span><span>More than two thirds<\/span><span> of detainees don\u2019t even have a criminal record. They\u2019ve lived in their <\/span><span>communities for decades<\/span><span>, trying to find a legal pathway to residency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While interned, they\u2019re <\/span><span>treated abysmally<\/span><span>, deprived of medication and subjected to unsanitary conditions \u2014 <\/span><span>in the hopes that they\u2019ll self-deport<\/span><span>. That\u2019s if they survive. And, <\/span><span>increasingly<\/span><span>, they don\u2019t. At least <\/span><span>50 people have died in ICE custody<\/span><span> since January 2025, many of them by suicide. The <\/span><span>mortality rate<\/span><span> is more than double what it was during Trump\u2019s first term and four times higher than it was during Biden\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And, as we\u2019ve just seen in <\/span><span>Maine and Texas<\/span><span>, sometimes they don\u2019t even make it to the facility \u2014 even if they weren\u2019t actually targets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The gleeful criminalization of immigration is terrifying communities across the country, targeting U.S. citizens who <\/span><span>speak Spanish<\/span><span> in public or <\/span><span>appear to be Latin<\/span><span>. If you\u2019re not White, you don\u2019t belong here, is the overall vibe. But if you are White, and you get in the way of Trump\u2019s anonymous, inadequately-trained goon squad, you might be <\/span><span>murdered in the street<\/span><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The ICE prisons in Gilroy and elsewhere are symbols of all this degradation and depravity, the brutal architecture of a country that\u2019s lost its way. Unfortunately, there\u2019s more to come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>At least we have NIMBYs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Nick Bhasin is the deputy opinion editor of Bay Area News Group. He can be reached at nbhasin@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5648\">Asking Eric: I don\u2019t know the bride, and I\u2019m baffled about the gift protocol<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent pause in ICE facility construction proves the best way to resist Trump\u2019s purge is to throw paperwork at it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bhasin: Gulag in Gilroy: Finally, some NIMBYism I can get behind - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=5654\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bhasin: Gulag in Gilroy: Finally, some NIMBYism I can get behind - 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