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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms orders jail to refuse new ICE detainee

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 from the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

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The city must not be complicit in 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."

Bottoms said that she had concerns about a potential unintended consequence of individuals being sent to 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

that address our broken immigration system.”

A tent encampment holding the children of immigrants separated at the border was recently built near the Tornillo Port of Entry on June 19, 2018 in Tornillo, Texas.