Social Circle community unites against plan to use warehouse for ICE detention

Correction: ACPC has updated this story. An earlier version incorrectly included the phrases ‘Russian-backed’ and ‘Moscow-based’ in reference to PNK Group and its owner, Andrey Sharkov.

Sharkov lives in New York most of the time and splits the rest between Monaco and Moscow. He is no longer a Russian citizen. Until 2023, Sharkov also owned PNK Group in Russia as a separate entity from the U.S. company.

On Tuesday evening, Social Circle residents and city officials crowded into the Standridge Community Center to seek answers and voice unanimous opposition to a secret federal plan that would convert their exurban quiet town into a national deportation hub. 

City officials told community members they’d first learned of the proposal in a story the Washington Post ran on Christmas Eve. According to the Post, a draft federal contracting document will convert a recently constructed million-square-foot warehouse intended as a logistics hub or fulfillment center into a “mega detention center.” 

Located in Walton County, 45 minutes east of Atlanta, Social Circle is home to just 5,400 residents. This facility would detain up to 10,000 adult and child migrants awaiting deportation—double the population of the city itself.

City manager Eric J. Taylor spoke to the crowd of roughly 80 attendees on behalf of the city. “Social Circle is just not the right place for it.” 

“There is literally zero daylight between any of us at all,” said John Miller, a Social Circle resident and business owner who organized the event on behalf of One Circle Community Coalition.   

Non-disclosure agreement

According to Taylor, city and county representatives have been working overtime since the news broke to get answers. They reached out to Governor Kemp and Lieutenant Governor Jones for help in contacting the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, respectively. Taylor said he and the Mayor met with representatives of Senator Warnock’s office earlier Tuesday afternoon and had been in touch with Congressman Mike Collins.

The warehouse is owned by PNK Group, commercial real estate firm owned in turn by Andrey Sharkov and registered in the U.S. and European Union. PNK Group was originally incorporated in Russia in 2004. Sharkov “recalled the brand from Russia” in 2023, according to a deposition he gave Feb. 20, 2025.

PNK Group informed Walton County they could remove the property listing from its website, said Shane Short, president and CEO of Walton County’s Development Authority. Ordinarily, this would mean the listing found a buyer or tenant, who would reach out to the development authority for help with tax incentives and other matters, he relayed. That did not happen.

“We’ve received no information whatsoever,” said Short.

“They claim they’re under a non-disclosure agreement,” Taylor said of PNK. “We don’t even know who that’s with, and they can’t talk about it.” 

Taylor said PNK refused to meet with Social Circle officials. “We thought we had a meeting on the books. It didn’t happen. The Mayor tried to meet with the building owner. And he replied back today that he couldn’t talk about it because of the NDA.” 

“For sale signs started going up”  

Residents from all walks of life and political stripes shared their unflinching opposition to the plan. 

“I served on the school board for ten years,” said John Callahan, who greeted attendees on the way in and asked them to sign a petition against the project. “Our new (elementary) school is less than a mile, right up the road from this facility. That’s why I’m adamantly opposed.” Callahan resigned his position as school board chairman over objections about the school’s proximity to high-traffic commercial areas.

Miller also objected to the burdens on already inadequate water, sewer and emergency response infrastructure necessary to care for such a large population in detention.

Social Circle Fire Chief Kenneth Zydel addressed concerns raised about the city’s capacity to respond to the needs of the facility. “I don’t think you can do it.” 

Police Chief JW Guest worried about the additional burden traffic and associated activities would create. 

“We have a duty in this whole process,” Miller told the audience. “It is not sufficient for us to sit at home and hope that these things are gonna solve themselves. As citizens, we have an active role to play in what goes on in our community.” 

Some residents expressed concerns about how they could exercise their power if PNK Group can make property deals without input from the public and elected officials. “It now seems like we have allowed a foreign-based developer to dictate . . .  who they’re contracting with to bring into our community,” said Jean DuForte, a real estate agent. 

PNK Group told ACPC, “No owner, investor, or backer of PNK Group is based in Russia or is a Russian citizen.” In his Feb. 20 deposition, Sharkov said he is no longer a Russian citizen and is U.S.-based but does live in Moscow part time.”

Jo Ellen Artze, another resident and real estate broker, expressed concern about how the plan would impact real estate values and community character. “For sale signs started going up” shortly after the news broke, she said. 

Organizers from Atlanta, Athens and statewide coalitions were also in attendance to offer support and help Social Circle connect with other potential detention center sites around the country. 

In the parking lot after the meeting ended, Linda and Woody Woodworth, whose family has owned a farm in nearby Morgan County for over a century, spoke to the “moral outrage” of the plan—which got short shrift in the big tent of unanimity inside.  

“People are gonna die in that building,” Woody Woodworth said, citing in-custody deaths and gynecological abuses at other facilities in Georgia.

Nilson Barahona, a formerly detained Georgia resident, attended the meeting on behalf of the Shut Down Folkston Coalition and ICEBreakers. Reflecting on many residents’ sentiments that an ICE mega detention hub would be okay, just not in Social Circle, Barahona responded, “They have no idea what goes on in these places.” 

As the Woodworths walked to their car, Linda Woodworth struggled to find words fit to print. Woody Woodworth summed up his reaction: “They’re kind of stuck in facts and logic right now. In my experience, nothing ever changes unless people get really mad. And if a lot of people get really mad, stuff changes.”