The East Point City Council Votes To Address ICE Facility Moratorium, Prospective Ordinance + Full Meeting Video

The East Point City Council held its regularly scheduled meeting last night and addressed an issue of particular concern to a number of residents in the city: A potential ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention facility setting up a location inside East Point.

At the meeting, several residents showed up and voiced their opposition to ICE setting up and operating a housing facility here, and asked the council to impose a moratorium to prevent it from happening.

Darby McNally, who told the council and mayor that she is a 4 year East Point resident, said she brought a petition signed by 458 people, including 275 of whom she said were East Point residents, urging the council to adopt a measure on local ICE facilities.

“This push for a moratorium is strictly preventative so that our city won’t be a site of federal overreach, to be pushed beyond the limits of what it can handle”, she said.

McNally said she was accompanied by several other residents who shared her concern. She pointed out that East Point has not been publicly identified by the federal government as a potential host for a new ICE detention facility, but still encouraged the council to enact a moratorium.

“East Point has a number of viable facilities that could be repurposed for ICE use, and we want to ensure that that doesn’t happen”.

Councilmembers expressed support for taking action and Ward D Councilmember Latonya Martin-Rogers acknowledged conversations among some on council had already been taking place regarding the issue.

“A couple of my colleagues and I have been in conversation with our city attorney”, she said.

“I’ve also done a little research on them (moratoriums and ordinances) and how other municipalities have addressed the regulatory concerns”, Martin-Rogers added before making a motion to address the facilities.

“So at this time I’m going to make a motion to direct our city attorney, Attorney Wiggins, to come back with a resolution addressing ICE facilities within the City of East Point, including appropriate regulations, zoning, and land use provisions, for our council to have that consideration.

Councilmember Mitchell seconded Martin-Rogers’ motion.

Ward D Councilmember At-Large Andrea Caldwell then added that she wanted the proposed moratorium to go further.

“Moratoriums typically are temporary in nature”, she said. “I’d love for us to explore opportunities to see how we could potentially make it (the moratorium) permanent”. Councilmember Mitchell reaffirmed his second.

Several audience members applauded Caldwell’s comments.

The motion and addendum were seconded by Ward C Councilmember Tremayne Mitchell.

After further discussion, the mayor announced a motion to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance that addresses ICE detention facilities in East Point. That motion was again seconded by Councilmember Mitchell.

The vote was then affirmed unanimously.

The next step will be the city attorney’s: Once she drafts the new ordinance, the East Point council will take a vote on enacting what is likely to be a new ordinance.

Such a law would align the city with a growing number of municipalities across the country which have adopted their own ordinances aimed at discouraging ICE from establishing a detention center in their cities.

The presence of not only detention centers but operations by ICE agents in local jurisdictions has become a highly polarizing issue after several citizens were killed after encounters with ICE agents.

Though local laws addressing ICE are symbolic in nature since the federal government’s objectives supercedes those of local government, municipalities have continued to enact ordinances that have resisted ICE facilities by using local power to rewrite zoning laws in order to ban private prisons or detention centers in specific commercial or industrial zones.

Some cities have cited a lack of natural resources in order to resist ICE moving into town: City officials in Social Circle, Georgia cited water and sewer constraints to challenge a 2026 ICE warehouse acquisition.

The next East Point City Council meeting will be Monday, October 5, 2026, at 6:30 PM..