An agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and Georgia's Charlton County to issue a $47 million expansion of an immigrant detention center quickly came to a halt this week after the infamous Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reviewed the contract.
The multi-million dollar contract was flagged for review under a federal policy that requires all DHS contracts worth more than $20 million to be reviewed by DOGE, which was formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk. The contract would have created the largest immigration detention center in the country and a potential hub for housing immigrants arrested throughout the southeast, according to The Washington Post.
The agreement would have integrated the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Georgia, into the Folkston ICE Processing Center, Action News Jax reports. Currently, the ICE processing center has capacity for a little over 1,100 beds. The addition of the correctional facility would've increased that to around 3,000 beds.
"This is going to provide approximately 400 additional jobs in our community," Charlton County Administrator Glenn Hull previously said of the plan. "This is really truly economic development in its broadest sense here for Charlton County."
Following DOGE's review, the county scrapped plans to hold a vote on the contract that had been scheduled for Thursday evening.
"This is a big blow to Charlton County," Hull said once the contract was paused. "Economic Development in Charlton County is very limited. In unincorporated areas, we don't provide water and sewer, so that makes what we can attract very difficult." He said the deal is not canceled but would require a "federal policy change" to resume.
Immigration advocates strongly opposed the expansion of the detention center, arguing that the Trump administration is detaining people who pose no harm to the community. They have also pointed out the dire conditions migrants held in the facility face. Last year, a 57-year-old detainee at the facility, Jaspal Singh, died while in ICE custody in the facility after staff refused to promptly get him to an emergency room while he was having a heart attack, according to the findings of an investigation by ICE's medical division.
Likewise, a 2022 report from an unannounced visit by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General to the facility concluded that "Folkston did not meet standards for facility conditions, medical care, grievances, segregation, staff-detainee communications, and handling of detainee property. We identified violations that compromised the health, safety, and rights of detainees."
The ICE facility is owned and managed by the private prison corporation The Geo Group, which was recently awarded contracts to reopen facilities in New Jersey for about $60 million a year and in Michigan for about $70 million a year. Further, an agreement to expand detention at a Geo facility in Texas is expected to be worth $23 in annual revenue, the company said.
The Trump administration and ICE detention companies have said they expect to accelerate contracts for new detention centers when Congress makes more funding available for immigration enforcement. House Republicans last month approved a tax and spending package that included $59 billion for immigrant detention and transportation over five years— several times the current annual budget for detention. However, the legislation must still pass the Senate.
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
