June 12, 2025
A report revealed the contract was flagged by DOGE due to a policy that all DHS contracts over $20 million are required to be reviewed by the team.
Georgia’s Republican Congressman Buddy Carter announced U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) approved a plan to build the largest immigrant detention facility in the southeastern portion of the state, according to The Washington Post.
In a press release, Carter said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expanded a contract with the D. Ray James Correctional Facility to become part of the Folkston Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Centre. There will be close to 3,000 beds, with the opportunity to increase capacity and heighten the existing detention operations system.
In addition, Carter celebrated the plan as it will bring approximately 400 new jobs and economic growth to the First Congressional District. “With this expansion, Georgia will strengthen its status as a national leader in the fight to secure our southern border,” Carter said.
“I’m proud to have worked with Charlton County to get the D. Ray James Correctional Facility expansion over the finish line, which will bring jobs and economic growth to our region, and I will continue to support our brave ICE agents as they seek to restore law and order.”
The $47 million contract change comes just days after Charlton County Administrator Glenn Hull initially announced that the plan wouldn’t move forward due to the absence of a “federal policy change.” A report revealed the contract was flagged by the Department of Government Efficiency — better known as DOGE — due to a policy that all DHS contracts over $20 million are required to be reviewed by the team formerly led by Elon Musk.
The announcement also comes as anti-ICE protests have erupted throughout cities across the U.S. and ahead of President Donald Trump’s military parade scheduled for his June 14th birthday. News of the detention center caught the eye of immigration advocates, who set up protests outside of Atlanta’s ICE Field Office.
Executive Director of El Refugio Amilcar Valencia said the decision risks immigrants’ human rights. “People should be able to go back to their communities to continue a process without being detained, without being incarcerated, without the need of, you know, having to, you know, go through all this process where their human dignity, their human rights are uh at risk,” Valencia said, according to News 4 Jax.
”We are here demanding that the county that the, you know, the administration stop any efforts to expand the Folkston detention center because, again, this is going to affect not only the community in South Georgia but the whole community throughout the state of Georgia and the Carolinas as well.”
Valencia has spearheaded other protests and complaints about the conditions at the James Correctional Facility, accusing the facility of forcing immigrants to sleep on the floor and not providing proper healthcare.
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