Social Circle reallocates money from ICE warehouse

City’s lawsuit still active against DHS

A nearly $1.6 million contribution to the city of Social Circle from the former owners of the 1-million square-foot Social Circle warehouse purchased earlier this year by the federal government for conversion and use as an immigrant detention center was reallocated by the city council at its July meeting.

Originally targeted as a contribution to construction of a regional wastewater lift station, the $1.6 million now will go to improving some city-owned buildings, to municipal water infrastructure and related needs, and to cover some legal expenses, under the unanimous Tuesday city council decision.

The federal government’s plans for the warehouse, at the intersection of East Hightower Trial and Social Circle Parkway, called for as many as 10,000 people to be housed in the facility, effectively tripling the town’s population. The government has, though, recently been backing away from plans to use converted warehouses around the country to house immigrants awaiting deportation to their home countries.

However, a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and officials with those agencies by the city, contending the agencies did not adequately consider the impact of the federal government’s plans on the small town’s water, sewer and emergency services infrastructure, remains active in federal court, Social Circle City Manager Eric Taylor said Wednesday.

In recent congressional testimony, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (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 warehouse plans. Mullin told a congressional committee last month 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.”

Taylor explained Wednesday that the warehouse’s prior owner, PNK S1 LLC, an industrial building development and investment company, opted to contribute to the regional lift station as a cost-saving alternative to building its own lift station on the warehouse property.

The lift station was completed at about the same time PNK sold the warehouse to the federal government, for just under $129 million. As a result, and based on concerns regarding the city’s ongoing legal challenge to DHS and ICE, the city initially held off on plans to formally reallocate the $1,589,702.23 contribution from PNK for the lift station, Taylor explained Wednesday.