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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Signs Executive Order Pertaining to Separation of Families
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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday called the separation of immigrant families at the country’s Southern border “despicable,” and said the city won’t accept any new immigration detainees until she’s certain the separations have stopped.
"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 said in the release. "Thus, I have signed an executive order that prohibits the city jail from accepting any new ICE detainees."
Photos of children held in cages at border facilities have dominated the news in recent days, and audio recordings captured young children crying for their parents.
Politics In The News: Immigration And The Southern Border Crisis
The images and recordings have provoked a national uproar, sparking questions of morality.
Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., joined with more than two dozen of his senate colleagues to introduce the Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act that would keep our U.S. borders secure and end the separation of families at the border.
“Our porous borders combined with dangerous conditions in other parts of the world have caused an influx of immigrants entering the country illegally," Isakson said Wednesday in a news release. "The Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act would help us deal with this influx and improve the processing of immigration cases by adding judges and residential centers while also allowing families to stay together.”
Project South, an Atlanta-based organization working toward for social justice in the South, welcomes the decision of Atlanta not to detain immagrants for ICE and has been documenting conditions at the Atlanta City Detention Center and planned to release a report on its findings on treatment of detained immigrants in late summer.
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