City of Social Circle officials say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has finalized the purchase of an industrial warehouse with plans to turn it into a sprawling detention facility, where as many as 10,000 immigrants could be held.
The city reported on its Facebook feed Sunday that the pending purchase has gone through.
City officials have ”been informed by multiple sources that the sale ... has been completed,” the post says. “ICE is now the owner.”
Detainees are expected to begin arriving at the new facility as early as April, the city said in a social media post on Thursday. Social Circle is located primarily in Walton County, about 50 miles east of Atlanta.
The update from Social Circle came as municipalities elsewhere attempt to complicate ICE’s plans to expand its detention infrastructure in their communities — and as private companies who own the facilities that federal authorities want to purchase pull out of deals, following intense public pressure.
Despite concerns over the toll a large detention center would take on the city’s water and sewer infrastructure, Social Circle City Manager Eric Taylor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution there is nothing the city can do to block ICE’s plans.
“The U.S. Constitution has a supremacy clause that says that the federal government is not subject to state and local regulations,” Taylor said. “Federal law is supreme. So, they don’t have to apply for zoning. They’re not subject to any kind of regulations from the city of Social Circle.”
Last month, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff urged leaders in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus to answer the city’s questions about the project.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
On Friday, Ossoff asked for the plan to be scrapped.
“I again urge the Department to heed the significant concerns raised by Social Circle’s leaders and citizens and abandon this plan,” Ossoff said.
In their Thursday update, city officials said the warehouse being considered by ICE was in escrow and moving toward final purchase by the Department of Homeland Security. They received that news from U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Jackson, who represents the area.
The sale now appears to have been consummated.
Collins also informed the local authorities that DHS had conducted an engineering evaluation of city utilities, and that economic impact reports are being prepared, though not finalized.
The property in question is a currently unused warehouse at 1365 E. Hightower Trail.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
County tax records show the facility, valued at nearly $26.5 million, spans more than 183 acres. It was built in 2024 and is described as a “mega distribution” plant.
Records identify the current owner as PNK S1 LLC. A Georgia Corporations Division entry for the business lists a New York principal office address, which matches that of PNK Group, a developer and general contractor that builds and leases industrial facilities.
In a statement shared last month with the AJC, a PNK Group spokesperson said several potential buyers had expressed interest in the warehouse.
“Because this is a sales transaction, any future use of the property will be determined solely by the eventual purchaser and will be subject to the required local review and approval processes. PNK will not have any role in operational decisions once the property is sold,” the statement said.
The prospect of an ICE facility within Social Circle city limits has rankled residents, who voiced opposition to the project during a Jan. 6 community meeting and a Jan. 14 protest.
Most of the city of Social Circle sits within Walton County. In 2024, 73% of voters there backed Trump, while 27% cast ballots for his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
A pledge to create a mass deportation program was a signature component of Trump’s campaign platform.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Pushback elsewhere
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed into law by President Trump last July allocated $45 billion for ICE to expand its immigration detention system, part of a massive cash infusion that made ICE the country’s highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency.
Plans to convert warehouses into mass detention facilities are underway in six other cities across Missouri, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia. Each would hold 5,000 to 10,000 people.
Sixteen smaller warehouses, including one in Jefferson, Georgia, would hold up to 1,500 people each. Other states selected to host the smaller warehouses are Texas, Maryland, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Indiana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Jersey, Utah, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.
Across many of those communities, the proposed facilities have sparked backlash and protests. Some local and state lawmakers are even attempting to rein the agency in.
In El Paso, Texas, the nonpartisan city council unanimously passed a plan of action last week to explore ways to prevent the opening of new ICE detention centers within city limits. Last month, the Kansas City, Missouri, city council passed a resolution placing a five-year ban on nonmunicipal detention facilities. Local leaders in Maryland also signed bills banning private detention centers.
Elsewhere, local officials say they are powerless to resist.
“It’s looking like it’s out of our hands,” a Surprise, Arizona, councilmember told reporters, according to USA Today. ICE bought a warehouse there for $70 million in cash, spurring a protest of roughly 1,000 residents.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Orlando’s Democratic mayor similarly told USA Today that “the city is unable to take action to limit or regulate any activity by the federal government,” following reports of ICE officials visiting a warehouse there.
At the state level, the New Mexico legislature passed a bill banning ICE detention centers earlier this month. Similar bills have been introduced in Massachusetts, New York and Delaware.
More immediate road bumps could come from private landowners backing out of deals to sell their properties to the federal government.
On Jan. 30, the owner of a Virginia warehouse said it would not move forward with a deal to sell a 550,000 square-foot warehouse to federal authorities. In Oklahoma City, criticism at city council meetings and downtown protests led the private owners of a warehouse there to pull out of its deal with ICE. And in Salt Lake City, a local family business that owns the warehouse ICE identified as a future jail said it had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government” after protesters gathered outside their offices.
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