Residents and officials in small conservative communities across the American South are resisting federal plans to site large-scale immigration detention facilities in their towns, exposing an unexpected rift within Trump's political base. In Social Circle, Georgia (a town of around 5,000 outside Atlanta), the federal government purchased a warehouse for $129 million to house up to 10,000 immigrant detainees, prompting prayer vigils, heated town-hall meetings, and a local official locking the facility's water meter until authorities explain how they will meet infrastructure demands. The opposition — mirrored in places like Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, where even Republican officials have filed lawsuits or intervened to block facilities — centres on strained local utilities, lack of federal communication, and broader moral concerns, as the Trump administration's detained immigrant population has surged from 37,000 to more than 60,000 since late 2024.