Hundreds of ICE detainees will soon be held in the small town of Folkston, Ga. : NPR

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Folkston, Georgia, is a small rural town of about 2,800 people, but that number will soon grow to more than 4,000 as detained immigrants fill an ICE detention center on the outskirts of town. A former prison is being expanded to house inmates as part of President Trump’s ongoing efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. The facility, run by private prison company GEO Group, is poised to become the largest in the country. And as NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports, that’s raising both hope and concern about Folkston’s future.

SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN, BYLINE: Luke Harris (ph) and his friend Martin Rimes (ph) cool off in the shade of a train viewing platform.

(LAUGH)

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: The trains are big here. Depending on who you ask, 60 to 120 trains pass through Folkston every day. Other than that, there’s not much going on. The city center has a few restaurants, but during the day most of them are closed. And Harris says he sees far fewer unemployed workers hanging out at McDonald’s than before, in part because the ICE detention center has created a lot of new jobs.

LUKE HARRIS: I have a few friends who work there. I see them in uniform all the time.

MARTIN RIMES: At the prison. I have a nephew who works there. He’s a keeper.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: These are good-paying jobs with benefits – a big deal for a struggling city that Harris describes as…

HARRIS: Don’t blink. You will miss it.

(LAUGH)

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Folkston, maybe. But not the immigration processing center.

GLENN HULL: This is the largest ice processing facility in the United States.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: At least it will be when it reaches capacity. This is Glenn Hull, the county administrator. We are on a dirt road near the detention center. This is the closest we’ve come since ICE denied NPR’s tour request. A grassy field surrounds this area. It’s at least three blocks away. Bright barbed wire surrounds the entire facility. A large water tower sits in the middle, with GEO in giant letters – the name of the private company that contracts with DHS and ICE to run this place. Hull takes us past a parking lot full of employee cars.

HULL: Obviously, you can see the economic development that it’s having here and the impact it’s having on our community with all these jobs and potentially more.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Nearly 200 jobs so far and $260,000 for the county and over $600,000 for the city of Folkston. GEO Group’s contract with the federal government for the expansion of this site amounts to approximately $96 million over two years. County Administrator Hull says GEO Group has been an excellent partner in the community, providing scholarships and sponsoring community events in a city where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

HULL: I hate to say it, but if it’s not here, it’s somewhere else. So you enjoy what you have on your table. And I hate to simplify things because it’s about people’s lives and their families, but that’s the reality.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: That’s the reality in this city, where the detention center and a landfill are the biggest employers.

HULL: It’s a huge undertaking. Is this true? It’s not up to me to decide. But yes, there is definitely a human element to all of this that touches my soul.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Recently, hundreds of South Korean workers arrested here after a raid on a Georgia Hyundai battery factory described freezing temperatures, moldy mattresses and foul drinking water, as well as racist gestures by guards. ICE and GEO Group did not respond to questions related to the allegations or details of the facility expansion.

As we walk past the detention center, inmates dressed in orange jumpsuits approach the fence and start shouting at us.

UNKNOWN ICE INMATE #1: Help.

HULL: Help.

UNKNOWN ICE INMATE #2: They don’t treat us well here.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Help, they don’t treat us well here, the inmates shout at us.

HULL: If I were held behind barbed wire like that, I would also scream for help to someone going down a dirt road. Without a doubt. I mean, that’s the human side, right?

SAVANNAH POLLOCK: Most people don’t see a moral issue here.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: She is Savannah Pollock, 24, a medical student and one of the few local residents to speak out against the detention center. She was born and raised in Folkston. His grandfather is a pastor in a Baptist church. A member of the family also sits on the departmental council.

POLLOCK: Well, you’re at a level of poverty where you’re just thinking, How can I get money in my pocket? And that’s where they bring up this, you know, we just don’t have a conversation about jobs. But I say it’s just something you don’t want to build your future on – something that changes every four years.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: That’s because the operation of this detention center depends on the political winds, and things can change quickly. And this whiplash is something this county has experienced in the past. A hospital that was a major employer suddenly closed its doors, leading to unemployment, a health care desert and a devastated building. The same thing happened with sawmills and titanium mines. Even the detention center was once a state prison that also closed, leaving more than 300 residents without work. But Administrator Hull is optimistic that ICE’s presence here could give them leverage.

HULL: I won’t put it in quid pro quo terms, but we support a major federal policy with this administration, and we need a hospital.

SAMANTHA HAMILTON: Regardless of what other fun community services GEO Group might one day provide, at the end of the day, they’ll prioritize what makes them money.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Immigration attorney Samantha Hamilton is with the Shut Down Folkston ICE Processing Center.

HAMILTON: And what makes them money is locking people up.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Hamilton represented inmates at Folkston.

HAMILTON: It’s endemic to this capitalist system that holds these rural communities hostage to make them feel like they can’t do anything but accept this quote-unquote “gift” that’s being presented to them.

POLLOCK: I don’t want to be known for that because our reputation isn’t that.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: It’s resident Savannah Pollock again. She says she loves her city and doesn’t want its reputation tarnished.

POLLOCK: You know, we’re people who – we travel across the state to go see you play football, you know? I still have people encouraging me to go to medical school. This is who these people are. And if they could, they would ride and die for this city if they had the means to do so. I don’t think that’s who we are – the ICE center is not. And I hate it when they take advantage of us and make us out to be us.

MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: But whether in Folkston or elsewhere, expanding or creating detention centers is essential to President Trump’s goal of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants – an unprecedented program that his administration says has already resulted in more than 400,000 expulsions. Sergio Martínez-Beltran, NPR News, Folkston, Georgia.

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