'Regret, buyer's remorse, betrayal': Deep red town revolts over Trump ICE facility
The citizens of tiny Social Circle, Georgia, where Donald Trump received 70 percent of the vote all three times he ran for president, are in full revolt against the president’s administration after the Department of Homeland Security bought a facility projected to hold 10,000 immigrants while they await deportation.
According to MS NOW’s Antonia Hylton, that has led to a standoff with the city manager who is insisting the town of approximately 5,000 does not have the water and sewage infrastructure to accommodate the flood of detainees.
In addition, locals who admit they still support the president and his immigration crackdown but don't want the facility to open point out that they never thought the president’s policies would impact their lives.
Hylton, along with Kay Guerrero and Grace Cardinal, wrote, “Local leaders have scrambled to respond by organizing meetings, raising alarms about infrastructure strain and pressing federal officials for answers. Concerns include aging water lines, limited sewage capacity and the site’s proximity to the elementary school.”
“Months into those efforts, they are still waiting for DHS to answer their questions. They also say their Republican congressman and governor have been largely absent, unwilling to attend meetings, return calls or advocate on behalf of the very residents who overwhelmingly helped put them in office,” their report added.
Appearing on “Morning Joe,“ Hylton was asked what locals are thinking about the president now that they are on the verge of being personally impacted.
“There's a lot of buyer's remorse,” she told co-host Mika Brzezinski. “I heard that regret, buyer's remorse, betrayal, because this is a town that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. They believed in his agenda there in the district where Laken Riley was murdered. And so there was a lot of belief in his message around border security. And they just never pictured mass deportation would look like this.”
Addressing a picture of the massive building, she pointed out, “Look at that site. You know, what's so interesting about that is if you look at that image there, all those dark marks, you see, they're not windows, those are doors. Because when you run a retail site, you often have hundreds of doors on a facility like this, but you see that there are almost no windows.”
“Their plan is to put 10,000 human beings in there of all ages, and even the most hardened line, you know, pro mass deportation agenda folks that we met in this town said, you know, we never envisioned human beings would be at this site and we didn't vote for that.”
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