Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday shed some light on the dwindling numbers of detainees being held in Gainesville’s North Georgia Detention Center, which is expected to be closed by the end of this month.
On Tuesday, the 502-bed facility was holding just 97 immigrants facing deportation, down from 303 the year before and 393 the year before that, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Asked why the former Hall County jail has been holding so few detainees, an ICE spokesman said his agency has never filled all the beds there. “ICE’s use of the North Georgia facility has always been based on the agency’s needs,” ICE spokesman Vincent Picard said in an email. Picard said the Obama administration’s new policies that offer many immigrants reprieves from deportation have had no effect on the number of detainees being held in Gainesville.
Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America announced on Monday that it is closing the center by the end of this month, citing the falling numbers of detainees there. Any remaining detainees will be transferred to detention centers in Irwin and Stewart counties, according to ICE.
ICE said it does not expect those transfers to negatively impact the other detention centers in Georgia. The federal agency said it has no plans to expand those centers or build new ones in the state.
Read more about this issue here.
