Atlanta Mayor Bottoms orders jail to refuse new ICE detainees

ATLANTA — Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday announced that she had signed an executive order prohibiting the city’s jail from accepting new detainees of the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

The city must not be complicit in U. S. President Donald Trump’s policies that have separated children from their families at the Mexican border, Bottoms said.

“I, like many others, have been horrified watching the impact of President Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy on children and families, Bottoms said in a statement. “My personal angst has been compounded by the City of Atlanta’s long-standing agreement with the U.S. Marshal’s Office to house ICE detainees in our City jail.”

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Bottoms said that she had concerns about a potential unintended consequence of individuals being sent private, substandard, for-profit facilities elsewhere in the state as a result of the order.

“But the inhumane action of family separation demands that Atlanta act now,” she said.

Bottoms called on the Trump Administration and Congress to enact “humane and comprehensive measures that address our broken immigration system.”

Cox Media Group