Georgia town planning for 'worst case scenario' ahead of ICE facility

It started with a call from a reporter with the Washington Post.

Officials in Oakwood, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, had just heard that a 10,000-bed Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center was coming to another north Georgia town a few weeks earlier when the phone rang.

The reporter asked if Oakwood knew it was shortlisted for an ICE processing facility. No, this was the first they were hearing about it, officials told him.

In the weeks that followed, the city of less than 6,000 people prepared for two warehouses within their boundaries to be converted to an ICE processing facility. To their knowledge, detainees would be brought to Oakwood after being arrested, spend a few days there and then be transported to the larger and longer term detention facility in Social Circle, Georgia.

Oakwood officials are estimating costs over $2 million as water and sewer capacities are tested and their police force requires additional training. As of Feb. 27, the town has never been contacted by the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS says 'no detrimental effect' of ICE facility — city disagrees

B.R. White, Oakwood's city planner, says the only contact they've gotten from Washington has come from Andrew Clyde, a representative in the House from Georgia's 9th district which includes Oakwood.

In a February statement, Clyde said his office had received information from ICE, that was passed along to Oakwood, identifying two warehouses on Atlanta Highway as the right fit for a detention processing facility.

"The identification and fit for purpose of each facility included an engineering review of the existing utilities and facility infrastructure. The engineering team reviewed the proposed use and capacities for electricity, water usage, waste exportation, and water capacities for life safety building systems (fire protection systems)," Clyde shared. "The final selection of the facility was predicated on a 'No Detrimental Effect' determination."

But White says cost is unavoidable, and absolutely detrimental to Oakwood.

"We don't know (who will pay for utilities)," he told USA Today in an interview. "We don't have a sewage treatment facility in Oakwood. We pre-purchase capacity from three other jurisdictions, and through our agreements, we have maximum capacities from each jurisdiction."

The additional cost of increasing the sewage capacity for the detention center would top $2 million, White says. That's money that the city just doesn't have to spend.

The city of Oakwood receives about $9 million in ad valorem tax annually, meaning nearly a third of its revenue would have to turn around and go directly toward paying for water and sewer for the ICE detention center they had no control in building.

"We're between a rock and a hard place, because once the state or the federal government purchases the property, we have limits on what we can do to, you know, advance our points, and one of those is the utilities," White said. "But until we approve it, they don't have it."

Planning for 'worst case scenario'

Utilities isn't where the cost to the city stops.

Oakwood is anticipating around $771,072 in lost tax revenue now that the federal government owns the warehouses instead of a private company. Other taxing entities in the area are also impacted.

The city posted their estimates publicly on their website on Feb. 24.

The city also plans to spend about $215,000 on equipment for their police department, in addition to new training for officers to deal with possible protests.

"We're having to plan for worst case scenario in the event that what happened in Minnesota happens here," White said. The city is "gearing up for any type of protest or any civil disobedience."

White said he expects people from across the region to come voice their opinion in Oakwood, but the small police force is unprepared if the situation became physical. They are hoping to go through training with state and agency partners in the coming weeks to better support the community should protests start up.

"Our official stance is that we're there for the safety of the citizens of Oakwood and the safety of the person's right for free speech and assembly," White said. "So if they've gone through the proper paperwork and everything that we will do what we can to make them safe."

But the money is tight. The City of Oakwood's budget runs from calendar year to calendar year, meaning it had just approved the 2026 budget when the city learned the ICE facility was coming, and now officials have to "squeeze that budget" in order to meet the needs of the police department.

"There's no benefit to the City of Oakwood, even though (DHS) put out a statement saying 'oh yeah, there's a benefit region wide,'" White said. "You can massage those numbers to come out whatever you want, and that's something I proposed. Well, if (DHS is) going to come out with numbers like that, and you know they're correct, then make them specific for Oakwood. Make them specific for south Hall (County). And you know, I don't think they can do it."

Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at [email protected].