Trump Fans Rage at Plans to Build Giant ICE Detention Centers in Their Towns

Pro-Trump towns are facing strong opposition to plans to build massive new detention centers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within their borders.

This wave of protests represents the first local test of President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s campaign to fundamentally reform the immigrant detention system by transforming vast industrial buildings into Amazon-style detention centers.

The plan, detailed in internal ICE documents and public bidding documents revealed by the Washington Post before Christmas, calls for the creation of seven large regional complexes, designed to house between 5,000 and 10,000 detainees, as well as 16 smaller secondary sites capable of holding up to 1,500 people – a system that officials have compared to billionaire Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce network, but applied to human beings.

However, this strategy hit a snag this week, according to a recent Washington Post report. In a meeting room in Social Circle, Georgia, residents learned that their town of approximately 5,000 people might be forced to host a warehouse capable of housing up to 9,000 migrants, the newspaper reported.

“I support the president, but I don’t want this,” Victor Crowley, 57, told the Washington Post, adding that residents only learned about the project through the newspaper and had received no communication from federal authorities.

Attendees at the meeting questioned why a small town 70 kilometers east of Atlanta, with only two or three police officers on duty at any given time, should bear the burden of a complex that could house nearly twice its population. Authorities warned that Social Circle’s water and sewer systems are already near capacity, and residents are concerned about the proposed warehouse site’s proximity to the local elementary school.

It was also pointed out that the building is designed for transporting goods, not families, that it lacks air conditioning, has limited fire protection, and is surrounded by dozens of loading docks that would be prohibitively expensive to secure.

The same list of projects from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will affect 22 other communities, many of them heavily Republican, where industrial sites are being considered for the construction of detention centers of varying sizes. In Roxbury, New Jersey, a town won by Trump in 2024, the Washington Post reports that residents are holding town hall meetings and protesting along roadsides to urge local officials to oppose what they consider unfair federal overreach.

In Jefferson, Georgia, the newspaper notes that Mayor Dawn Maddock has already stated she would not support the proposed warehouse prison project due to “potential safety concerns that could impact our citizens and our school system.”

In Orange County, New York, county spokeswoman Rebecca Sheehan argued that losing a warehouse to the federal government would create a tax revenue shortfall, stating that officials “would prefer a taxable project, such as a film studio.”

The Department of Homeland Security has promoted the concept of using warehouses as a way to expedite deportations by channeling people into smaller, more densely populated centers, rather than transferring them between more than 200 local and private jails scattered across the country as space becomes available.

An announcement concerning the project described a network of new “processing” sites feeding into regional detention centers, while another investigation projected that the system could eventually accommodate more than 80,000 immigrants simultaneously, in addition to the approximately 68,000 already detained as of early December, nearly half of whom have no criminal record.

Publicly, the Department of Homeland Security remains tight-lipped. “These are not warehouses, these are detention centers,” Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security, told the Daily Beast. “The Department of Homeland Security conducts law enforcement operations across the country every day to keep Americans safe. It is not surprising that ICE is making arrests in multiple U.S. states and is actively increasing its detention capacity.”

She added: “We have no new detention centers to announce at this time.”

Legal experts warn that a local response may prove insufficient. Rick Su, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, told the Washington Post that federal agencies often succeed in overturning local zoning laws when judges determine that municipal regulations conflict with national immigration policy.

Following the Social Circle town meeting, the Washington Post reported that City Councilman and Reverend Nathan Boyd attempted to calm the anxious crowd with a prayer, describing their struggle against Washington as an unequal fight, similar to the story of David and Goliath. He said, “Lord, we need your help to get through this. It’s like the story of David and Goliath.”