Social Circle leadership had scheduled a meeting with Department of Homeland Security officials Wednesday afternoon and planned to have engineers in attendance to lay out their concerns that city utilities cannot accommodate DHS’ plan to convert an industrial warehouse into an immigrant detention center.
But DHS called off the meeting shortly before it was due to take place, as part of a broader rethinking of its nationwide warehouse strategy — which includes another Georgia facility, in the tiny Hall County city of Oakwood.
“I got a call from them earlier this week to cancel that meeting because they are doing a department-wide review … and that’s really all they said,” Eric Taylor, Social Circle’s city manager said.
On Tuesday, a report from The Associated Press found the Trump administration is pausing the purchase of new warehouses for immigrant detention. A Homeland Security official also told the AP that warehouse purchases already finalized are also under scrutiny.
Taylor said he approached members of Georgia’s congressional delegation for more information.
“They basically reported back to me that it’s essentially pencils down right now.”
The pause comes amid a change of leadership at Homeland Security. Former Secretary Kristi Noem was ousted last month, making her the first Cabinet secretary to leave the Trump administration in its second term.
Since being tapped by the president as the new DHS head, Markwayne Mullin has struck a more conciliary tone than his predecessor.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals,” a DHS spokesperson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a statement. “As Secretary Mullin said in his confirmation hearing: ‘I will work with the community leaders and make sure that we are delivering for the American people what the President set out. We want to work with community leaders. We want to be good partners.’”
B.R. White, Oakwood’s city manager, said the city had not been given information about the DHS pause ahead of media reports.
White added he wouldn’t have expected to be notified given the federal government did not involve Oakwood authorities in its February purchase of the warehouse there. Oakwood officials have expressed similar concerns as in Social Circle, primarily about the ability of its utilities to serve a large detention facility.
“Hopefully the new DHS secretary will follow through with his comments and thoroughly review the warehouse-to-detention facility program, including meeting with local governments to discuss the impacts,” White said.
Credit: WSB TV
Credit: WSB TV
Even prior to this week’s pause, there had been signs the Trump administration was not going to be able to stick to its original timeline for converting the two Georgia warehouses into detention facilities.
At the time of the warehouses’ purchases by the federal governments in February, city leaders in both Oakwood and Social Circle said they had been told detainees would arrive sometime in the spring.
But the Trump administration has yet to award contracts for the building and operation of either facility. ICE must build out the warehouses with cell blocks, recreational spaces, medical facilities, cafeterias and visitation rooms, among other necessities, before detainees can be held there.
Taylor said he hopes the current pause becomes permanent.
“My No. 1 hope is they come out from the review realizing they made a bad purchase here in Social Circle, and that we’re right in everything we’ve been saying, and that this is not the right community fit and we don’t have the infrastructure for it,” he said. “And I hope for greater dialogue because there’s been zero dialogue, not just (with Social Circle), but with anybody in any city in the country.”
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