Social Circle, Ga. — The small Georgia town of Social Circle said Friday that the Department of Homeland Security has abandoned plans to turn a warehouse into one of the country’s largest immigration detention centers, capping a months-long revolt that united local officials across party lines.
The reversal, reported to be one of seven similar warehouse deals scuttled under new Homeland Security Director Markwayne Mullin, marks a grassroots victory in a community that had mobilized against a facility that would have tripled its population and strained water, sewer, and emergency services.
The federal government purchased the Social Circle warehouse for $128 million in early February, city manager Eric Taylor told The Guardian. The price was nearly five times the property’s assessed value of $29 million from the previous year. The facility was slated to detain up to 10,000 people.
Despite being located in a county where nearly 75% of voters supported President Donald Trump, residents of the rural town — home to 19th-century buildings and surrounding horse and cattle farms — began organizing against the plan soon after the purchase was disclosed.
Taylor shut off the federal government’s access to water at the warehouse in February, The Guardian was the first to report, as local opposition escalated. He also reached out to U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who became involved. Activist groups including Indivisible Boldly Blue and Indivisible GA 10 pushed back against the detention center plans.
Last month, Social Circle became the first small town to sue the federal government over detention center plans, after several states had already filed their own lawsuits. The lawsuit employed a novel legal strategy, drawing on areas of law distinct from the state-led challenges, according to experts who spoke to The Guardian.
Taylor said he began hearing rumors in late May that DHS intended to pull out of Social Circle. Sources at the department and at Collins’s office later confirmed the news. But Taylor said he decided to wait for written confirmation before announcing anything publicly.
“At this point, we’re not sure anyone’s going to put it in writing,” Taylor said Friday. “From the very beginning, this is how this whole thing has evolved … we’ve had to piecemeal what the situation is.”
DHS did not respond to a query from The Guardian.
Taylor remained cautious about the outcome. “We hope everything is what it seems to be,” he said, referring to the cancellation of the warehouse plans.
It remains unclear whether the agency will transfer the Social Circle warehouse to another federal agency or attempt to sell it to a private buyer. Taylor said he would prefer the latter, because the federal government does not pay property taxes. The warehouse’s former owner, PNK Group, paid about $300,000 in taxes last year on the property.
“If they want to consider giving it to us, we’ll take it off their hands,” Taylor said of the warehouse. But if the Trump administration decides to retain ownership, he added, “Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson here and communicate with us from the very beginning.”