(The Center Square) – The Atlanta City Council passed two resolutions addressing immigration two months after Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said he hoped U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence during the World Cup games would be “small” or “nonexistent.”
One resolution opposes the construction of a large-scale detention center within the city limits. It cites the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the city’s commitment to “meaningful community participation, worker dignity, housing stability, immigrant justice, environmental sustainability, and transparency in decision-making as essential components of responsible mega-event planning.”
Atlanta will host eight World Cup soccer games between June 15 and July 15. When asked in February about the possible presence of ICE, Dickens told Atlanta media he hoped that “their presence will be small, unnoticeable, negligible, invisible and maybe nonexistent.”
The resolution opposing detention centers is a “messaging bill,” said Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the conservative-leaning Center for Immigration Studies.
“The only people who are adversely affected by ordinances like this are the aliens themselves and their lawyers and families, because if you want to visit a loved one in the facility, you are going to have to travel to Lumpkin, Ga., or to Angola, La., or to the Everglades in Florida to do that,” Arthur said. “And you know, if you have an immigration attorney you’re already working with, that immigration attorney is going to have to travel to that facility at great cost, which is going to get passed along to the alien and the alien’s family.”
ICE purchased warehouses for new facilities in Social Circle and Oakwood, two small cities east of Atlanta. Officials and residents from both cities have pushed back. As of now, any progress on the facilities is under review by the Department of Homeland Security.
The second resolution would require the Atlanta Police Department to report cases of “suspected misconduct by federal immigration agents.”
“Really what proposals like this do is it drives a wedge between law enforcement entities,” Arthur said. “If the goal of law enforcement is public safety, and it is supposed to be, you want to have everyone who is engaged in public safety all working toward achieving that goal.”
The Center for Immigration Studies lists Atlanta among cities that don’t cooperate with ICE officials.
The Georgia Senate passed a bill in 2025 that would waive sovereign immunity for local governments that adopt and implement what its sponsors called “sanctuary policies.” The bill did not get a vote in the House of Representatives.
