Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Thursday signed an executive order for transferring all remaining
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The city of Atlanta will no longer have any Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees in its jail following a set of executive orders from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a move effectively terminating the city’s cooperation with the mass deportation agency, which has cruelly escalated its attacks on hardworking immigrant communities following Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“We will no longer be complicit in a policy that intentionally inflicts misery on a vulnerable population without giving any thought to the horrific fallout,” Bottoms, only the second woman to lead the city, said. “As the birthplace of the civil rights movement we are called to be better than this.”
In June, WSB reported, Bottoms’s initial order “blocked the jail from taking in any new ICE detainees amid enforcement of the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance” policy,’” which kidnapped thousands of children from the arms of parents at the border. At that time, the city had 205 immigrant detainees in custody. This week’s move orders the five immigrant detainees still in the Atlanta City Detention Center be transferred out. Local advocates and civil rights leaders hailed her actions.
“I applaud Mayor Bottoms’ decision,” said Congress member John Lewis, a civil rights icon. “Our nation is facing a period that may require leaders to be strengthened by the courage of their convictions to stand up and reassert the values of our democracy. The action Mayor Bottoms took today is in keeping with Atlanta’s historic commitment to civil and human rights. It was the right thing to do.”
However, as Lewis notes, “there are concerns that authorities may now send detainees even farther away from their families and support systems to detention centers in South Georgia.” But, ICE would be doing this intentionally. Under previous administrations, immigrants with no criminal record or who posed no danger to public safety were commonly allowed to stay with their families, as long as they checked in regularly. Trump and ICE have reversed this and now want to ramp up immigrant detention.
Still, Bottoms’s decision cannot be understated. “Metro Atlanta is among the worst places in America for an undocumented immigrant,” Lewis said, “and people across Georgia suffer from a federal policy that is cruel and inhumane. Since October 2017, half of all the deaths occurring to those in ICE custody have taken place while people were detained in Georgia.”
Local decisions—and local elections—matter. From California, to Virginia, and now Georgia, local leaders have taken action to end contracts with ICE, and with a Republican-led Congress refusing to protect immigrant families, it’s these local leaders doing the work. “Anyone who stands against keeping families together,” said Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, “lacks any kind of moral compass.”
“I do not make this decision lightly,” Bottoms said, “or without concern as to the impact on these individuals. But until there is comprehensive immigration reform, this is the only way Atlanta can truly fulfill its legacy of compassion and tolerance. Civil offenses do not warrant criminal consequences—and no one should be jailed solely because they seek the American Dream.”