Officials in Social Circle say they don’t want, can't handle federal immigration detention center

Caption

A family from Colombia sits on a bus with tinted and barred windows after they were detained by federal agents following an appearance at immigration court Monday, July 14, 2025, in San Antonio.

Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay, File

Local officials in Social Circle, Ga., were caught off guard by news The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump administration is considering their town in its plans to renovate industrial warehouses across the country.

Internal ICE documents reviewed by The Washington Post show the administration aims to build seven large-scale facilities to hold tens of thousands of immigrants ahead of deportation.

Social Circle city manager Eric Taylor said local officials didn't know anything about the draft solicitation beforehand.

Now, he says he and Social Circle Mayor David Keener are reaching out to federal and state officials, and "everyone who will take our phone calls."

Keener said he and the rest of the city council adamantly oppose the idea.

"Detention like that would triple the size of our population,” Keener said. “We're sitting right at 5,000 people now. So you're going to have to, as a result of that, you gotta provide housing, you gotta have homes for people that are going to be doing this. We don't have the police force to support this."

Taylor said they've reached out to the White House, but he had not heard back from them yet.

“And we spoke with the lieutenant governor Wednesday, and he had calls in to very high-level representatives of the Department of Homeland Security,” he said.

They also contacted the offices of Gov. Brian Kemp and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff seeking their help.

Taylor said he doesn't know exactly which warehouse is being considered but that, in any case, Social Circle's water and sewer infrastructure would not be able to handle it being converted into a detention center housing potentially thousands of people.

The Post also reported that the northeastern Georgia town of Jefferson was being considered for a smaller processing site that would house potentially hundreds of people.

The Post cited internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its reporting.