Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms hasn't been wasting any time since stepping into office, rapidly working to shake up her cabinet, reform her city's criminal justice system and deal with a major cyberattack.
The mayor's latest major move is on the issue of immigration.
On Thursday, Mayor Bottoms signed an executive order releasing all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees from the city's jails. The city will continue to hold detainees for other federal agencies, such as suspects arrested by the FBI, but its relationship with ICE is done for.
Atlanta has permanently ended its acceptance of ICE detainees and will immediately transfer all those remaining out of our City jail. We will not be complicit in an immigration policy that intentionally inflicts misery on vulnerable populations. Read Here: https://t.co/fdP46uXTee
pic.twitter.com/Oe0JrdeGZ2— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) September 6, 2018
“We will no longer be complicit with a policy that intentionally inflicts misery on a vulnerable population without giving any thought to the fallout,” the mayor said according to WXIA. “As the birthplace of the civil rights movement, we are called to be better than this.”
The measure is a step to permanently end all ties with federal law enforcement agency. The order is in line with a separate order the mayor signed in June, which rejected any new detainees under the Trump administration's zero tolerance immigration policy.
"As we work as a nation to end this despicable immigration policy, the city of Atlanta will not take the risk of being complicit in the separation of families at the border," Bottoms had said back in June, and she definitely kept that same energy today.
Following outcry over forced family separations at the border, and the continued hunt for the parents of now orphaned children, many Democrats, such as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have called for ICE to be completely dismantled. Others, like Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) believe the agency needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
WSB-TV reports as of Wednesday, there were only five ICE detainees left at Atlanta City Detention Center, a significant decrease from the reported 205 in June.
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