Revolt in small Georgia town appears to ward off ICE detention center | Georgia
The small town of Social Circle in rural Georgia announced It was stated that the Department of Homeland Security canceled plans to turn a warehouse into one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the country.
The cancellation is understood to be one of seven cancellations nationwide. report elsewhereand is part of a reversal under the new homeland security director, Markwayne Mullin, of the Trump administration’s plans to purchase warehouses and expand detention capacity after spending $1 billion on the effort in recent months.
The federal government bought the Social Circle warehouse in early February for $128 million, nearly five times its estimated value of $29 million last year, city manager Eric Taylor told the Guardian shortly after the sale went through.
With plans to detain up to 10,000 people, the detention center would triple the local population, putting pressure on drinking water and sewerage, as well as local police and ambulances.
Despite being located in a county where about 75 percent of people voted for Trump, residents of the rural town with 19th-century buildings in the city center and surrounding horse and cattle farms have begun to mobilize against the plan.
The Guardian was the first to report in February, as the controversy began, that Taylor had blocked the federal government’s access to the water in the tank.
Taylor also reached out to U.S. Representative Mike Collins and U.S. senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who are involved in the matter. Organizations such as Indivisible Boldly Blue and Indivisible GA 10 also opposed the detention center plans.
As the months passed, Taylor became accustomed to calls from national and international reporters, including from France and Japan. “I never thought I would have to deal with something of this magnitude,” he said. “It’s incredible to focus on this little town just minding its own business.”
Local leaders, including Taylor, publicly condemned the federal government’s lack of response to their concerns about the plan.
Then last month, Social Circle became the first small town to sue the federal government over its detention center plans, after several states filed suit. The case used a new strategy that highlighted different areas of the law than others, experts told the Guardian.
In late May, Taylor “began hearing rumors” that national security was withdrawing from the Social Circle. Homeland security sources and Collins later confirmed the news. Still, Taylor said, “We decided to wait until the announcement was made and see if we could get it in writing.”
But as with Taylor’s previous attempts to contact the federal agency, there was no response.
“At this point we’re not sure anyone is going to put this in writing,” he said. “This is how it all went down from the very beginning… We had to explain what the situation was, piece by piece.”
“We hope everything is as it seems,” he said Friday morning, referring to the cancellation of warehouse plans.
National security did not respond to the Guardian’s question.
It’s not yet clear whether the agency will offer Social Circle’s warehouse to another federal agency or try to sell it to a private buyer. Taylor would prefer the latter, since the federal government doesn’t pay any taxes on the property. Former warehouse owners PNK Group paid nearly $300,000 in taxes last year.
“If they think of giving it to us, we’ll take it away from them,” he said.
But if the Trump administration decides to keep the property, the city manager added: “I hope they learned their lesson here and communicated with us from the beginning.”
