A (4:25)

Yeah. So before I get into that, I think providing some context on who the Social Circle community is would be instructive. So it's a pretty small, it's a very small city. It's got a population of about 5,000 people, overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly white and pretty wealthy. And it's about an hour drive outside of Atlanta. And In December of 2025, a news article was published in the Washington Post announcing, you know, the list of the 20 cities where these warehouses would be, would be popping up. And it was that article that told the residents of Social Circle and the elected officials of Social Circle for the first time that this ICE mega prison was coming to their community. There was no notice to the city by ICE or anyone in the federal government at all. Certainly no opportunity to respond, no opportunity for public input.

B (5:35)

Yeah.

A (5:35)

So they felt really blindsided.

B (5:39)

Yeah.

A (5:39)

And I'm not from this community and you know, I've met many of these people only for the first time, you know, within the last couple months. But I think it would not be so far fetched to say that some of these people feel, you know, especially the ones who identify as Republicans or as, you know, conservatives, I think they feel really betrayed by, you know, by their government, by their party. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, a lot of these people, I mean, I've just described the demographic I think many of them have never been involved in organizing of any kind before. Some of them have, I think, but I think due to, you know, their life circumstances, just might not have found themselves in a place where they've needed to organize for anything.

B (6:24)

Yeah.

A (6:25)

So a bunch of these residents got together and have been holding, you know, in person, kind of town hall community meetings. And they held one in January where there were about, you know, I think 40 to 50 people in the room. And they wanted to get together and, you know, just have a public discourse about what. What could be done.

B (6:48)

Yeah.

A (6:48)

And I was invited to. To this meeting because of my history of involvement with shutdown campaigns here in Georgia. I got started with shutdown campaigns in 2020.

B (7:05)

Okay.

A (7:05)

When a. A nurse, a whistleblower who worked at an immigration detention center here in Georgia called the Irwin County Detention center, alerted the public that there was a doctor who was contracting with ICE who had been, you know, providing medical services to women detained in this facility. Well, he had actually been performing non consensual and medically unnecessary medical and gynecological procedures on women in ICE detention.

B (7:32)

I remember this.

A (7:33)

Yeah, yeah. And when these women spoke out about it to their family members, to journalists, to their lawyers, to members of Congress or staffers for members of Congress, they were retaliated against by being swiftly deported. And I'm talking put on planes within hours of speaking to a congressional staffer. And at the time, I was working at the University of Georgia School of Law's First Amendment Clinic, where we were providing, you know, free legal services to people across the state, including, you know, helping people with getting access to public records and suing the police and, you know, and federal agents when they were retaliated against. And so we represented those women. And it was through my work at Irwin and, you know, connecting with the organizers there that I got involved with shutdown campaigns, or rather the shutdown Irwin campaign here in Georgia, and then from there later got involved with the shutdown Folkestone campaign. So I had been asked to speak to this group of people who I think were new to the immigrants rights struggle to talk about, you know, what it's like to try to prevent a detention center from popping up in their community.

B (8:47)

And like, you say, like, it's not a community that might traditionally be demographically the same as the people who we associate with, like, migrant advocacy, migrant activism. I guess when a group like that comes into a moment like this, I mean, there are some areas of activism, I guess, civil society stuff, where white suburban folks have some Experience planning is one of them. The reason bike lanes only go north south in San Diego is because they think that those of us who can't afford to live by the sea don't deserve to cycle safely. There are many other examples of this, but what were their thoughts when they. When they first met? I'm really interested to know that, like, they're obviously upset and they feel abandoned and betrayed, but, like, how did they want to organize to prevent this?

A (9:40)

Well, a lot of them were upset about the decrease in their property value. That was what was really bringing them. Yeah, that was the radicalizing moment.

B (9:51)

Same with the bike lanes, actually.

A (9:54)

Oh. Oh, yeah, I bet.

B (9:55)

Yeah.

A (9:56)

And, you know, but in addition to the property value stuff, it's also, you know, the strain that this would impose on their small community. I mean, you know, a number of the people who live there might be of, you know, well, to do means, but, you know, their city police department employs a total of 14 officers, and they have two on duty at any given time.

B (10:18)

Okay.

A (10:19)

They have a fire department of, you know, comparably, you know, small size, and they have, you know, water and sewer infrastructure that was built to accommodate about as many people as live there now. You know, between 4,000 and 5,000 people.

B (10:36)

Yeah.

A (10:37)

And it's that impact that is also, you know, really maddening and activating and agitating to people. Those arguments are not new to us who have organized in South Georgia in also very red areas, a lot more rural and a lot less wealthy.

B (10:56)

Yeah.

A (10:56)

You know, we'll try to. We've canvassed door to door in the city of Folkestone to try to ask people how do they feel about this mega prison opening up in. In their community? And a lot of people, you know, were against it, despite the fact government officials might try to bill it as, you know, an economic boon, you know, an employment opportunity. A lot of people said, like, hey, I mean, I don't necessarily want a prison in my backyard, but if it's bringing jobs, then, you know, that's what this community needs. That's something that I think makes social circle distinct from the previous shutdown campaigns I've worked on in Irwin county and in Folkestone is that this isn't really an area that is starved for employment or starved for economic support. These people are doing okay. And another thing that makes it distinct is before all of this warehouse business, the vast majority of facilities in this country are formed through intergovernmental service agreements, you know, or ICSAS for short is the acronym. But they're agreements between the federal government and the county, the local government. Where the local government says, yes, you can use our land or our facilities and in exchange you pay us. I mean in the case of Folkestone, it's a comparably measly amount. It's only $200,000 per year.

B (12:24)

Jesus. Not much. Yeah.

A (12:26)

Even though the federal government is giving, I mean, $50 million a year to insert your favorite private prison corporation here, you know, whether it's Corecivic or Geo Group. Yeah. I mean your favorite. There are only two. Really.

B (12:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not much of a choice.

A (12:40)

Yeah, yeah. And so typically like we see this sort of like co opting and manipulation of the local community and the local government by the federal government, you know, coerc economically to, you know, to take on these detention centers or else. But here, I mean social, like I said, social circle is doing fine. They're not starved for economic investment and I didn't, you know, consult them at all. It really just like, you know, in the dead of night just bought this warehouse from a private company and pushed this deal through. So those are some aspects that I think might throw, you know, some of us who might have been involved in these similar fights before, like for a loop a little bit because yeah, there's this assumption, I think by some of the local officials that the supremacy clause governs here and the federal government can do whatever it wants. So there's no point in us trying to use our local zoning ordinances or what have you to try to put a stop to this. Because there's nothing that we can do.

B (13:44)

Right.

A (13:45)

Is at least what you know, some people might be saying.

B (13:48)

Yeah, let's take a break for advertisements. I can't think of anything mean to say. I don't know, buy some shit. This have come from a. Don't, don't buy anything you don't need. Okay, We are back. So you were talking about this, this assumption that the Supremacy clause would mean that the, the federal government could, could build a mega prison in a warehouse in your town without asking you if it could do that first. Can you explain like how people are able to use like you said, like various local tools to oppose this. Like you said, it's a huge burden. Like when I first read this story, I remember thinking about like, just like the water and sewage demands of housing 8,000 people would be crippling for the infrastructure in a lot of places. So like how are people opposing this?

A (14:49)

Well, it's been really inspiring for me to see these local leaders who again, many of whom have you know, never been involved in activism or organizing before. They've been very consistent in holding demonstrations on a weekly basis at the site of this facility and have garnered the attention of different media who have come and interviewed them. So that's been one way that they've been trying to, you know, get their message out there. I was just talking about, you know, the residents who are concerned from, you know, a sort of fiscal perspective and are concerned about, you know, their own property values and things like that. But there are a fair number of people who are concerned about, you know, the core human rights abuses. And, you know, sure, some of the lines might be, well, this isn't the right place.

B (15:43)

Right.

A (15:43)

You know, our city is not the right place for a detention center, suggesting, you know, implying that there are some places that are suitable for a detention center. But there are a fair number of people in this community who. Who are opposed to detention centers in general. I mean, they see that. They see the violence that ICE is inflicting in broad daylight on public streets, and I think they're horrified, and they don't want to be complicit in something like that coming to their community. And I do think that along the way, I'm seeing more of a shift in the consciousness, or at least an openness to understanding the different influences that bring us to the same table.

B (16:34)

That's cool.

A (16:35)

Yeah, it has been very cool.

B (16:37)

Yeah.

A (16:37)

And we can agree that we're not going to have 100% unity of ideas, but we can have a unity of action, and we can save these debates on whether someone is illegal or not.

B (16:53)

Yeah.

A (16:54)

But we can continue to have them along the way as we are also identifying the very concrete ways that we can work together. And I'm thinking of one. For example, I work pretty closely with some staffers for different members of Congress. I mean, in terms of, like, uplifting, you know, human rights and civil rights abuses that we see in detention centers. Because as part of my job, I go inside detention centers, immigration detention centers in Georgia pretty frequently, also federal prisons.

B (17:28)

Okay.

A (17:28)

And we'll meet with people and learn about the conditions that they're facing, and we'll, you know, fight for them to get released and also share what I learned from them with, you know, different members of Congress. And most of our connections are with people who are aligned with the Democratic Party. You know, I mean, to be. To be frank, you know, I've never initiated correspondence with a Republican, but I think I kind of just assumed that they wouldn't want to.

B (17:58)

Yeah. Yeah.

A (17:59)

That I wouldn't get anywhere with them or that they wouldn't, you know, that they wouldn't talk to me. But what's been effective in working with this coalition of residents is some of these people, I mean, yeah, like they, I, you know, they've been card carrying Republicans for a long time and feel that they, you know, can wield influence over, you know, certain Republican elected officials. And one of them, you know, I mean, well, I, I don't know how many of them, but, but a number of these local residents have gotten Republican, you know, Mike Collins to come out against this ICE facility.

B (18:36)

Yeah, that's especially right now in the Republican Party and like that. That could be very difficult for them to do sort of once not hugely sympathetic to Republican politicians. And I would still like to see them get better. Like that's, we want people to get better. That's the whole thing. And I think for these people whose politics may not be the same as ours, sharing the space, sharing the movement, showing the struggle, I hope it makes people better. I hope being exposed to people who are not of the same background as you, be it class rise, race wise, politics wise, whatever makes people realize that things are not quite how they're presented to them on the television or in the media they consume.

A (19:19)

Totally.

B (19:19)

So I'm sure that's. Yeah, like, I hope that is positive. What, what can like local government do or even like elected officials do, given that elected officials on a federal level do, given that. I mean, ICE just appears to be operating like without a great deal of oversight right now.

A (19:40)

Yeah, I mean, with each of these warehouses, there are different circumstances around each of them. I've been really inspired honestly by the folks in Maryland who are dealing with a warehouse, maybe multiple warehouses. I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't remember where, you know, at both the local and the state level, they have really pushed for legislation that would effectively. Yeah. I mean, prevent these warehouses from existing at all. It is a different set of facts than what we're working with here in Georgia because there's more involvement by private actors. And so the government, you know, the local government can, can regulate them more. But Maryland is certainly not the only place where, where those fights are happening. And so I would really encourage folks to, to. Yeah. To learn from Maryland. And I get, you know, I, I'm talking about, you know, legislation. I, I mean, I will be the first to tell you as a lawyer that I don't think legal tools will liberate us. You know, the law will not make us free.

B (20:50)

Sure. Yeah.

A (20:51)

And I Do think it's. It's the people power, it's the coming together, it's the mass collective action that is, you know, that's what's going to do it. And also, there are multiple, you know, there are multiple tools and multiple instruments that we can. Yeah, they can wield. And so right now, I mean, with respect to the Social Circle Warehouse, ICE is saying that they intend to detain people in there starting in April. Jeez, in less than two months.

B (21:20)

Yeah.

A (21:21)

And so right now, the strategy truly is to use just like, every tool at our disposal.

B (21:29)

Yeah.

A (21:30)

Identifying. Yeah. Like, what legislation can be filed, what litigation, you know, what lawsuits can be filed, what, you know, demonstrations, what kind of, you know, canvassing, door knocking, you know, you name it. Like, how can. How can people come together? How can we try to identify which companies would be supplying the labor to turn this warehouse into something, you know, where people will be detained? I mean, not that. Not that I think ICE gives a damn about making any type of facility habitable for humans, but there's going to be. There's going to be some work that needs to be done in order to, you know, turn this, you know, would be Amazon Warehouse into a place for. For people. And is there work that, you know, local organizers, because they're organizers. Yeah, we're all organ. You know, we're all organizers. Is there work that local organizers can do to try to unite with laborers, with workers who, you know, might be working on this facility to try to, like, prevent them or, like, city workers? Like, can they prevent city workers from, like, actually hooking up this warehouse to the city utilities?

B (22:48)

Right. Yeah, yeah, presumably. Yeah, that will be a building contractor. Right. Like, they will want to build thousands of cells in this giant. Yeah, all of that stuff. And especially with it happening so quickly, like, you know, anything that delays that will cause it to at least slow it down? I guess.

A (23:09)

Yeah. I think another angle that we haven't talked about yet is the environmental angle, like with Social Circle, you know, this is, I mean, a town of 5,000. It's gonna trip. It's gonna nearly triple the number of people in this place and also triple the amount of waste and sewage that's going to be coming out of this place. I mean, so that's one thing. Another thing for people to look at is what would the environmental impact of these warehouses be on local waterways, for example, and that's what, you know, temporarily put a stop on. The detention facility in the Everglades in. In Florida was a legal challenge in federal court under NEPA the National Environmental Protection act, because the federal government had failed to conduct the proper environmental impact assessments. And the only thing that they actually really had to do was, you know, something very procedural and, you know, tick a box. And ultimately the facility ended up moving forward. But it was a tool to buy time to figure out what other types of organizing can we do.

B (24:31)

Yeah. And it's still, like, even if it's only time. Right. Like, harm isn't being done in that time, and it's still a good thing. It's like a form of harm reduction. It reminds me a lot of the struggles here against the newer, larger border wall that we've seen since 2015, 2016, you know, when Trump got elected. Like, I'm thinking about how there have been ecological challenges to it, there have been social challenges to it. Right. The city of San Diego is currently trying to sue the Fed to trespass for part of its war construction, which, like, I'm not a big fan of our city government, but, like, I'm glad they did that. And all these different tools have at least, like, at least in the last Trump administration. I remember in the late summer of 2020 being out with some Kumeyaay folks who were in ceremony because the wall construction was destroying Kumeyaay ancestors who are buried there and then the spaces where they are buried. And they ran out the clock on the Trump administration. Right. By using their rights as indigenous people to be in ceremony, the refusal of the workers to literally drive a dump truck through the middle of their ceremonial practices, they were able to run the clock out on the Trump administration. Unfortunately, now we have another one. But all those different things had to work together to mean that in that little part of the border, somebody's great great grandparents remains weren't dynamited out of the earth. And that's still a good thing. Like, however we got there, that's a good thing.

A (26:06)

Absolutely.

B (26:07)

It makes me happy to hear that, like, even folks who might have otherwise been politically aligned with this project were appalled by this, because the idea of literally warehousing humans, like, it's so fucking bleak. Like, there's these big warehouses where we fill them with shit that we don't need, and now they're filling them with people that apparently we don't want. Like, it's. It's one of the more horrific things. I know. It just. It's so bleak to me.

A (26:32)

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Like, the veil has just been totally lifted. Like, we know that they don't view immigrants as human.

B (26:41)

Yeah.

A (26:41)

But now they're like not even pretending anymore, just truly treating people like chattel.

B (26:48)

Yeah, again. Yeah, again. Right. In the same places in this instance. Like, I guess I'm glad that even people who aren't not politically on the same team maybe, like, are opposed to this because it's. Yeah. It's repugnant. Yeah, I guess. What if people are hearing about this for the first time? Right. And we'll include that link to that article so people can look up where these locations are if they're near them. What advice would you have for people if you're listening to this? You click on that link, you find this one half an hour from your house or whatever. Like, what advice do you have for those people?

A (27:24)

I think if you're already an organizer, regardless of whether you've been in the immigrants rights fight or not, now is the time when it really is like all hands on deck. So don't be afraid to get involved. But also, like we were talking about before we started is I think, guarantee that there is some immigrants rights movement in your locale or somewhere close by. And I think it's just so important to approach this work not with the assumption that you are starting launching this new campaign, spearheading this new previously untapped area of work. Because I guarantee you that, you know, there are people who have worked on this before. And so I think connect with, you know, connect both with people who have been doing this work for a long time and also try to connect with people who you might not otherwise have thought to connect with. And I think it's important to call out the NIMBYism, the not in my backyardism of how, you know, some people are coming at this issue because they're worried about their property value. But it's also something that we can capitalize on it's energy. And oftentimes it's people with capital and connections that you might not otherwise have had access to either. So I think the connecting and the community organizing needs to go in multiple directions. But I do think it's important to move. It's important to move fast.

B (29:14)

Yeah, seriously. That is a very constrained timeline. Everybody has to be. But that means it's also important to move respectfully. Because if we just blow each other up because people assume that migrant communities have somehow not been advocating for themselves and each other for centuries, then we're not going to have time to organize because we're going to be dealing with that shit. And I've seen that so much just personally. Right. Like having been involved for some time in migrant Advocacy and seeing folks, like, pop in and tell us how to do everything, it's. It's tiresome. And I understand that you'll want to help, but, yeah, if this is something that, like, you're organizing around, super easy to find those organizations to be like, how can I help?

A (30:02)

Yeah. And it's also such a good. Like, this fight in particular is such a good vehicle for fighting for abolition overall. As someone who's been saying, abolish ICE for years, it is amazing to see how much traction that phrase has, has gotten, especially over the last six months. And we can't just be fighting against, you know, preventing new ICE facilities. We need to be fighting for shutting down all ICE facilities and for abolishing ICE as an institution. We've been around before ICE and we will be around after ICE as, you know, as an agency. ICE has only been around since 2003. Sure, there was a predecessor. There was the INS, but I mean, it didn't operate in nearly the type of way that ICE does now as this law enforcement agency. And even before Trump, ICE was still a really, you know, horrible, like, horrible agency. And so, yeah, I think it's important to continue to, you know, point these things out while also, you know, welcoming people into the fight and pushing them farther.

B (31:18)

Mm, yeah, I think that's really. That's really important. Like, I think we have to rebut the assumption that this is an aberration and we can fix it and go back to normal. Because normal was bad and you just couldn't see it because it wasn't on your screen. Right. Like, children died in outdoor detention under Biden. I saw people suffer immensely in outdoor detention under Biden. Like, we don't want to go back to that either. And I think it's really important that when we build these coalitions, we build them with that in mind. That, like, we're organizing very quickly, but also we're in this for the long haul until everybody's free. Is there anything that you'd like to leave people with resources or a bit of advice? Any, like, closing words you'd like to share with them?

A (32:05)

Apologize. That's all I got.

B (32:08)

Perfect.

A (32:12)

It could happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check. Check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for. It could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.