As President Donald Trump wages a chaotic war across the Middle East, he’s also been waging a war against communities inside the U.S. as part of his effort to deport as many people as possible. As the administration’s campaign ratchets up, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been scrambling to convert warehouses in American towns and neighborhoods into massive detention centers.
This is part of an ongoing effort by ICE to expand its detention system, a mission for which Congress recently allotted a staggering $45 billion. In many cases, the communities near these future detention centers are adamantly opposing them for a variety of reasons and regardless of residents’ political affiliations.
Earlier this year, Portland, Oregon, issued a land-use violation against a building that was leased to ICE, since detaining people overnight technically violated the property’s zoning agreement. The Kansas City, Missouri, city council passed a five-year moratorium on permits that would have allowed ICE to operate from detention centers there after pressure from protesters and local officials.
And there’s one curious case of a Georgia town fighting against a potential center — although it does not appear to be fueled by political resistance. City officials in Social Circle, a town outside Atlanta with about 5,000 residents, are speaking out against a new detention center that could hold up to 8,500 people at one time, almost twice the population of the entire town itself.
