*Illustrative purposes only
Some years ago, on a visit to the Stewart Detention Facility in Lumpkin, Georgia, I was divested of my delusions about what a “detention center” was. This was a high-security prison.
My colleagues and I entered through rows of tall chain-link fences, topped and surrounded by razor wire. We left our belongings in a locker and proceeded through a metal detector. Doors slammed and locked behind us until we reached the visiting area where we spoke with detainees by phone through glass.
*Eduardo, a college student in his early twenties from a Central American country, had been targeted for his conservation activism. Fleeing for his life, he requested asylum in the U.S. where he found himself deprived of his freedom indefinitely with no clear pathway out of prison.
Prisons are the right place for convicted criminals. Yet, as of late January 2026, 74% of people being held in ICE detention centers (52,504 of 70,766), like Eduardo, have no criminal convictions (TRAC, 1/25/26), 47% had no convictions or pending charges (as of mid-2025).
More recently, a friend had a terrifying encounter with ICE. *Asma, an Afghan woman from a persecuted minority, fled to the U.S. with her teenage daughter at extraordinary personal risk. Throwing themselves on our mercy, they requested asylum.
Asma was granted a work visa and is gainfully employed. She has no criminal record and a pending asylum case. Yet ICE summoned her by letter to appear at a facility two hours from her home for a review of her case.
Terrified, she appeared as ordered. She left with a monstrosity of a GPS tracker on her ankle.
“Go and thank God we didn’t send you to detention,” she was told.
Distraught, she asked me, “What is my sin—that I took refuge here so my daughter’s future would be better?”
Are two minority women—one still a teenager—really to be sent back to Afghanistan, where the Taliban would likely force them into ‘marriage,’ legally sanctioned sex slavery?
Asma feels humiliated and can’t stop crying. Every time she looks at the ankle monitor, her throat is so tight with anger, she feels like she’s choking. She cannot even visit family in a neighboring state without requesting permission as if she were a criminal on probation.
Make no mistake—if more ICE detention facilities are built, they will be filled with people like Eduardo, Asma, and our Latino neighbors—people who’ve committed no crimes.
The cruelty inflicted on people in these detention centers knows no bounds. Reports of medical neglect, isolation, overcrowding, freezing cold, humiliation, and sexual assault are commonplace. A 400-page report from 2019 is chocked full of allegations of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse perpetrated by border patrol agents. In 2025, deaths in ICE custody reached a 20-year high. The first month of 2026 brought still more deaths. A toxic dynamic permeates these institutions, making officers and guards prone to psychologically distance and dehumanize prisoners.
This has gone on far too long. The time for silence is over. History is at our doorstep.
“Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die” (Proverbs 31:8, NKJV).
The New Living Translation says this:
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;
ensure justice for those being crushed.
Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice” (Proverbs 31:8-9).
Two new facilities are proposed for Georgia—one in Oakwood, a 1,000-bed facility; another in Social Circle, a one-million square foot facility, designed to hold up to 10,000 souls, which ICE has already acquired property for.
An expansion is proposed for the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Charlton County to increase capacity to 3,000 detainees. Companies, including GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America)—the largest owner and operator of ICE and Border Patrol detention centers) and the company that runs the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, are paid anywhere from $148 to $775 per person per night. That is a perverse and powerful profit motive.
These companies use their millions to fund politicians’ campaigns and influence policy in ways that require the long-term detention of immigrants to keep the money flowing.
Consider this: in March, 1933, in the last semi-free election, in which the Nazi Party won, 95% of Germany identified as Christian—62% Protestant, 33% Catholic. In large part, Christians failed to be a moral counterweight to human rights abuses and atrocities committed on their soil. Only 5-10% of German Christians meaningfully opposed Nazism, and only 1-2% through active resistance like clergy preaching openly against Nazi ideology, providing underground aid, hiding Jews, or engaging in resistance cells.
Who will we be in this moment?
Will we justify the inhumane treatment of fellow image-bearers of God?
Will we allow our tax dollars to fund cruelty and injustice?
Will we allow elected leaders to fund their campaigns with donations from corporations that benefit from this institutionalized cruelty?
What can citizens do to stop human rights abuses funded by our own tax dollars?
- Call your senators and representatives and urge them not to fund the Department of Homeland Security AND to stop any plans to build or expand ICE detention or training facilities in your state until these human rights’ abuses are stopped. It is possible to detain criminals without abusing the human rights of innocents.
- Show up at city council meetings to voice your opposition to the development of any new ICE detention centers.
- Communicate with corporate partners who are providing ICE and Border Patrol with cloud computing, surveillance software, logistical support, and communications infrastructure that supports raids, detention centers, and deportations, including AT&T, Home Depot, Amazon, Microsoft, and Verizon.
*Names changed for security.
https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/04/detention-center-contractors-keep-reaping-profit-after-dhs-upheaval/
https://www.gq.com/story/trump-detention-camps-cost
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