ICE detaining immigrants for long periods in Atlanta field office basement
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution) In recent years, immigration detention in Georgia has been a distinctly rural phenomenon.
The hulking facilities that have made the state a national leader in the lockup of immigrants sit out of public view, in small towns hours removed from metro Atlanta and the other urban communities at the center of immigrant life.
But immigration detention is now also happening on a large scale in downtown Atlanta, federal data shows — and it’s exposing immigrants to conditions that fail to meet government standards for safety, hygiene and access to legal resources, according to immigration attorneys interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have spiked and bed space has dwindled at detention centers, the agency has turned to detaining immigrants for long stretches in the basement of its Atlanta field office, a facility that traditionally served only as a holding area.
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