This Trump-Voting Town Doesn’t Want an ICE Prison Camp
This industrial warehouse could soon become a prison for thousands.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images North America
The people of Social Circle, Georgia, want their community to be known as “Georgia’s Greatest Little Town.” It’s a sweet descriptor which adds to the already charming name a traveler gave the community 200 years ago. But if the Trump/Vance administration gets its way, Social Circle could soon become known for something repulsive.
The Department of Homeland Security is barreling forward with a plan to make this once-sleepy town of 5,000 home to the largest federal detention center on the East Coast. A one-million-square-foot warehouse is being remade as a holding center for as many as 10,000 immigrants rounded up as part of the administration’s mass deportation campaign. The barbed-wire, high-security compound is expected to open in May, just 4,000 feet from the Social Circle Elementary School.