Meet the Christians praying over an empty ICE warehouse in Georgia

OAKWOOD, Ga. — It was a rainy day in Oakwood, Georgia as cars started to file into a parking lot across the street from two empty warehouses.

Vehicles were scattered in the lot just after noon on Sunday, March 8, and the tattoo shop, dance studio, furniture store, Italian restaurant and El Salvadoran eatery appeared dark inside.

An Oakwood (about 50 minutes northeast of Atlanta) police car sat just across the street in front of the looming first warehouse. The driveway to the warehouse has a locked gate, and a second, even larger, building blends into the gray sky down the hill.

But standing under the trunk of her car, the door hanging above her head to block the rain, was Reverend Dallas Ann Thompson, handing out vigil service bulletins and smiling as people slowly formed a circle around her.

Thompson's bulletin read "2026 Lenten Prayer Vigil, hosted at the site of the newly purchased ICE Detention Center in Oakwood."

"This is a prayer vigil. It is not a protest or a spectacle. We want this space to remain prayerful. No signs or bullhorns, please," the top of the page read.

Soon there were nearly 50 people huddling under umbrellas around the back of Thompson's car, some of whom had parked at the neighboring Northstar Family Church and walked through the wet grass and puddles to join the growing crowd.

Then the service began.

ICE facilities announced in small-town Georgia

Thompson and many of the vigil attendees learned the empty warehouses on Atlanta Highway in Oakwood were being sold to the Department of Homeland Security to be used for ICE detention facilities at the same time the city was informed.

A Washington Post reporter broke the news to city officials in February, and to this day no one from ICE or DHS have reached out to the city. The news quickly spread on Facebook and through reporting by Jeff Gill in the Gainesville Times, a neighboring town's local newspaper.

Oakwood was one of two towns suddenly thrust into the national immigration spotlight, joined by the city of Social Circle, Georgia, southeast of Atlanta. The facility in Oakwood is expected to be a processing facility for detainees, where they will spend a few days in detention before being sent to the longer term holding facility in Social Circle. There they will prepare for deportation. An estimated 1,500 beds will be inside the warehouse in Oakwood, a 6,000-person city, while up to 10,000 beds will be in Social Circle, a town of around 5,000 people.

Thompson, a supply pastor with Presbyterian Church USA wearing a "Love like Jesus" t-shirt, started hosting a Lenten vigil across the street from the warehouses on February 22, or the first Sunday of Lent. She said while she had hoped to join other religious leaders in events organized in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., it wasn't in the cards, and the vigils in Oakwood came from a place of wondering what she could do in her own community.

She began the service with a "call to worship" from Deuteronomy 10 —

We gather here today, crying out to the God of gods and the Lord of Lords, You are great, you are mighty, and there is no other like you. We serve a god who is not partial, who takes no bribe... Who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, who loves the strangers and provides for them. The Lord commands us that we too should love the stranger and that we should remember that we too were once strangers in the land of Egypt, and that in God's goodness, we were rescued. So may we too rescue each other.

The first vigils were just close friends, Thompson told USA Today during an interview over El Salvadoran pupusas from the nearby restaurant. But as attendees started to tell their congregations or their friends, and after it was posted on Instagram by Invisible Hall: Unite, the crowd started getting larger.

Thompson obtained a permit from the city and checked with businesses in the small strip to see if a gathering would scare away customers. Two Oakwood police officers were nearby to make sure no one interrupted the vigil, something Thompson felt was important to make sure anyone coming to the event would feel safe. The pastor said she "wanted a place to pray without being bothered" and she "didn't want it to be a show," but ultimately it was important to hold the vigils at the facility.

Gathering at the site of "planned atrocities marks the land as sacred," Thompson said. The vigils were as much to pray as to "gather as public witness" and "go to the people that are hurting."

The vigil included two songs, multiple prayers and a short sermon from Thompson, who spoke about ending an "us versus them" mentality. She said those who would find themselves on the other side of the ICE detention facility door were "just like me," people searching for better lives for themselves and those they love.

'We'd rather pray than protest'

This was the first vigil for Peter-Jon Allen and his wife Catherine, but the third event they have attended to speak out against the ICE facilities in Georgia.

"Well, we started paying attention, obviously, with the ICE issues early. And then, of course, the Minnesotans really kind of brought home that there might be some egregious behavior," Peter-Jon said.

The Allens said they weren't necessarily religious, but this kind of gathering was "energizing" and they were "looking for ways to be energized."

"We'd rather pray than protest," Catherine said.

"And what a beautiful gathering this is," Peter-Jon continued. "So yes, my plan is to become more involved."

Hall County has a relatively large Hispanic community, making up 30% of the population as of 2025. But the attendees of the vigil all looked roughly the same — older and white.

Thompson said this didn't surprise her. When speaking to members of the Hispanic community in Hall, she said many are scared to attend an event like this, and some are even scared to be out and about in their neighborhoods at all, even hesitating to seek medical care. She said the Hispanic community has been doing the work for a long time, but now it's time for the white members of Hall County, and Georgia, to step up.

Thompson said she would continue the vigils past Lent, which ends on Holy Thursday, or April 2, as long as there were "enough people to keep it going." Early estimates say the facility should open in April, but Oakwood officials are unsure, given the water and sewage infrastructure issues have yet to be resolved.

Lack of transparency is a 'red flag'

A group of women at the vigil, who asked not to be identified, said the facility was like "concentration camps," where people were going to be taken and where they could die.

"I'm also concerned that they've turned away senators and representatives who have tried to tour facilities, right, that just shows up a red flag," one woman, a longtime educator in Hall County, said. "(We) wish we could tour it, right. Hell, people who deserve and ought to be touring it are not allowed. And that's scary."

Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock traveled to Social Circle at the beginning of March, though he was unable to tour inside the building. He instead visited Social Circle's water treatment sites, an elementary school near the facility and the outside of the $128 million facility.

"Folks in Social Circle voted for this president overwhelmingly," Warnock said in a statement after his visit. "But here's what they didn't vote for — they didn't vote for a 10,000-person detention center that will triple the size of their town, to place a massive detention center next to an elementary school. They didn't vote for potential 'boil water' advisories or sewer overflows because this administration has overstrained their city's resources. They didn't vote for their voices to be unheard and trampled by their own federal government."

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].