LISTEN: An Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in South Georgia’s Charlton County is set to more than double its capacity. As GPB’s Grant Blankenship explains, it’s part of a nationwide expansion of ICE detention.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in South Georgia’s Charlton County is set to more than double its capacity. The expansion is part of a nationwide expansion of ICE detention.
The Folkston ICE Processing Center is owned by a for-profit company called The GEO Group.
The company also owns the nearby D. Ray James Correctional Institute, which once operated for the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Should the Charlton County Commission approve its role as a pass-through for money from ICE to GEO Group, the two properties will merge and add what ICE says are close to 2,000 more beds for people in the earliest phase of immigration detention.
According to ICE, the expansion would make Folkston the agency's largest processing center.
For its role, Charlton County stands to make seven times as much money as compared to the older deal with ICE and GEO Group, whose stock price rocketed after President Trump’s reelection.
