Possibility of a settlement?
The federal lawsuit filed by the city of Social Circle against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and officials with both agencies, over plans to establish an immigration detention center at a warehouse purchased earlier this year by the federal government appears to be moving toward potential settlement.
The two most recent filings in the case, both from July 24, are a single motion filed by both sides seeking an extension of time for the federal response to the city’s lawsuit, which had been due in July, and a judge’s order granting the motion but setting an Aug. 31 deadline for filing of the federal answer and any related documents.
In the joint motion, both sides note that they “have conferred and agree that the date for Defendants’ response to the Complaint should be extended up to and including August 31, 2026.”
“This additional time,” the motion contends, “will allow the parties to explore possible resolution without protracted litigation. Therefore, the parties request that the Court grant this Joint Motion.”
In its lawsuit, filed in May as DHS and ICE were moving forward with plans to transform a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse at the corner of Social Circle Parkway and East Hightower Trail into a detention center that could house as many as 10,000 immigrants awaiting return to their home countries, the city is seeking to halt DHS and ICE from any further work toward establishing the facility, and to have the agencies’ actions in that regard declared to be unlawful.
As noted repeatedly by city officials, the detention center would triple the town’s population, currently estimated at around 5,500 people. Broadly, the 32-page lawsuit contends that converting the warehouse into a 10,000-bed detention facility, to be staffed by 2,500 personnel, “would strain far beyond capacity the local clean water and sewage treatment systems, which are already operating at or near their limits.”
The lawsuit is also critical of ICE planning for the facility, noting that a planning document associated with the effort “is devoid of any details as to the construction process that will be needed to convert the vacant Warehouse into a detention facility to confine thousands of individuals.”
The city’s filing goes on to contend that the ICE document “fails to explain any possible impacts of the project on the environment or natural resources. It does not address how solid or hazardous waste will be generated, treated, stored, or disposed of. Nor does it specify the projected demands on various utilities, such as power.”
Currently, it’s not clear how the city’s lawsuit might proceed, considering indications that the warehouse project has been halted.
In June, citing a notification from U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican whose congressional district includes Social Circle, and confirmation from “multiple sources within DHS” the city announced n its Facebook page that “… the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is no longer pursuing an ICE detention facility with the city of Social Circle.”
Beyond that, in recent congressional testimony, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who inherited the warehouse plan from former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired by President Donald Trump earlier this year, admitted there are significant issues with the initiative, which would establish detention facilities not only in Social Circle, but in other warehouses across the country.
In June, Mullin told a congressional committee that “there’s some that just quite frankly, probably won’t work.” Then, effectively making the point being pressed by Social Circle in its lawsuit, Mullin told the committee, “There are some that we’re trying to make work, but there was some due diligence that maybe wasn’t actually checked off.”
In late June, The New York Times, citing documents it had obtained, listed the Social Circle warehouse among the seven such facilities that DHS plans either to sell off or to hand over to other federal agencies.
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