Rural America Is Getting Blindsided by Something New

Mr. Adeoye is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of American Pursuit, a newsletter on politics and policy.

Rural America has long been where the rest of the country sends what it doesn’t want nearby: prisons, power plants, landfills. These days, two more intrusions have been added to the list: immigrant detention centers and data centers.

In December, Larry Bender, the supervisor of Tremont Township in Schuylkill County, Pa., learned to his great surprise that the federal government had purchased the largest........

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