(The Center Square) – Social Circle, an agricultural town in Georgia with one stoplight that stopped blinking yellow and red about 10 years ago, said resident John Miller.
But the town of just under 5,000 residents could soon have a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention facility that could house twice as many people as residents.
Miller is one of the leaders of a group called “One Circle Community Coalition.” The group originally formed over concerns about the influx of data centers to the area. Miller, a farmer who owns land across the street from the proposed detention center, learned about the ICE facility while he was in Mississippi at a sweet potato festival in December.
“This was the first we had heard about it and then, from then on, it’s been phone call, phone, every single day for the past six weeks,” Miller said in an interview with TCS.
The phone calls to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins have yielded few details, according to Miller.
Collins said in a post that the facility could house up to 10,000, which is twice the number of Social Circle residents. But specifics about the facility’s construction, purchased by Homeland Security from a private company, are sparse. Social Circle officials said in a social media post that they were told the facility could house detainees as soon as April.
“We are a government by the people and for the people, right?” Miller said. “Well it’s kind of hard to say that’s who and what we are when they leave the people out of the conversation.”
Miller and others are concerned about the effects a large facility, which will be about 4,000 feet – about 11 football fields including end zones – from a new elementary school, would have on the small town’s infrastructure.
“It’s a fairly heavily trafficked area because of the school twice a day,” Miller said. “And then it’s only a two-lane bypass. Now we have learned that their intention is to hire 2,500 new employees. So that means they’re going to increase the daily commute by 5,000 trips to and from.”
Water is also a concern. Social Circle has a license to pull 700,000 gallons of water from the nearby Alcovy River, according to Miller. Based on calculations by a member of the One Circle Community Coalition, an additional 600,000 gallons of water will be needed for the detention center.
Social Circle residents are receiving support from both sides of the aisle. Ossoff issued a joint statement with Social Circle Mayor David Keener.
“A proposed ICE detention facility is not right for Social Circle, and the city of Social Circle does not support it,” Ossoff and Keener said in the statement. “We are urging the Administration to abandon this plan, which risks overwhelming the city’s resources and more than tripling its population.”
Collins, who is challenging Ossoff for Senate, said last week he has asked Homeland Security officials to evaluate the impact of the facility on the town.
“Although I am aligned with the mission of ICE to detain and deport the criminal illegal aliens who have flooded across our border due to Joe Biden’s reckless policies, I agree with the community that Social Circle does not have the sufficient resources that this facility would require,” Collins said on social media. “The detention center could nearly triple the city’s population, which hovers at around 5,000, while straining sewer and water infrastructure, posing serious safety concerns, and limiting economic growth.”
The area is 70% conservative, and this is not an ideological issue for his group, Miller said, even though he is aware of groups opposed to ICE who are planning demonstrations.
“We do support the mission,” Miller said of ICE. “What we’re saying is we have real physical concrete consequences that we will be hurt by this facility unless DHS takes some very significant steps to alleviate some of these issues and problems.”
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to TCS that it is building a detention facility in Social Circle, but did not respond to questions seeking more details.
“This will be a very well-structured detention facility meeting our regular detention standards,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant director of Homeland Security, wrote in an email. “Every day, DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
