SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. - U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) on Friday introduced a legislative amendment in Congress to block development of immigrant detention centers planned by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the Georgia cities of Social Circle and Oakwood.

Warnock’s proposed amendment to House Resolution 7147 was filed Friday, the final day of federal funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

“I’m standing with the residents of Social Circle and Oakwood and fighting to BLOCK these detention facilities from towns that don’t want them,” Warnock said in a news release on his filing of the funding amendment.

The ICE detention center planned for the Social Circle warehouse is expected to be capable of housing between 5,000 and 10,000 detainees awaiting transfer to their home countries. Those numbers would effectively triple the city’s population, a circumstance that city officials have said could not be absorbed by the city’s current water and sewer infrastructure.

Warnock’s proposed amendment addresses issues beyond the sale of the warehouse, and would mandate that no funds made available to DHS in a continuing resolution for federal funding could be used for “construction, renovation or expansion of any U.S. Immigration and (Customs) Enforcement detention center located in Social Circle … or Oakwood (located off Interstate 985 southwest of Gainesville) unless such action in either such location is explicitly authorized by an Act of Congress.”

The U.S. senator's proposed amendment to the continuing resolution legislation also mandates that the detention centers planned for Social Circle and Oakwood “… shall be subject to all applicable environmental laws and inspection requirements, including the completion of an environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.”

In the Friday news release from his office announcing his proposed amendment to the continuing resolution for DHS funding, Warnock said that while the “people of Georgia want secure borders; they do not want massive immigration detention centers in their backyards.”

“If the Trump Administration focused on getting violent criminals out of the country,” Warnock’s statement continued, “we would not need new detention centers straining Georgia’s rural communities.”

Regardless of the amendment, the federal government has officially purchased the property in which the ICE facility would be located at. According to a deed obtained by The Covington News, the federal government purchased the 235-acre lot at East Hightower Trail for $128,555,500.

Social Circle officials have remained insistent that they have yet to hear from the federal government throughout this process. In a Friday post on social media, the city said that the feds no-showed a scheduled meeting with them.

"The City of Social Circle had a scheduled meeting today at 2:00 p.m. with the Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," the post read. "The City is disappointed to report that the Department of Homeland Security continues to ignore the needs and concerns of the City by not participating in the meeting as planned. City staff and officials remained available for 45 minutes past the scheduled start time; however, the representative we were instructed to contact never returned our calls."

Managing Editor Evan Newton contributed to this report.