NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Greater than 100 individuals have been taken into custody by federal immigration officers in a joint operation with the Tennessee Freeway Patrol, leaving many in Nashville’s immigrant group unsure and anxious.
“None of us have ever seen something like this,” Lisa Sherman Luna, government director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition mentioned Friday.
The operation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a reminder of how native and state law enforcement jurisdictions are important to President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations. Final week, Florida officials touted a joint operation with ICE that resulted in 1,120 immigration arrests.
Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee not too long ago signed a regulation making a division of immigration enforcement with the state’s Division of Security and Homeland Safety, which incorporates the Freeway Patrol. He’s one in all quite a few Republican officers pledging to make use of state assets to hold out Trump’s plans.
In the meantime, metropolis officers within the Democratic stronghold of Nashville have disavowed involvement and been important of the arrests. Nashville Regulation Director Wally Dietz mentioned the state-federal operation, which started Could 3, caught everybody in metropolis authorities without warning.
Responding to considerations about Nashville police presence exterior an ICE workplace, Dietz mentioned Wednesday that town “routinely receives requests for further patrols for a wide range of causes and responds to the extent assets can be found.” He mentioned he did not know who was detained and that, when he requested extra data from the Freeway Patrol, he was instructed to file a public information request.
The Freeway Patrol mentioned Friday that it made 588 stops within the joint operation with ICE, which took custody of 103 beneath investigation for immigration violations.
The stops “led to the restoration of unlawful medication and firearms — taking harmful parts off the road and making Tennessee safer,” the Freeway Patrol mentioned. One individual was needed in a killing in El Salvador.
The Freeway Patrol mentioned stops are primarily based solely on driver habits. “We don’t enter neighborhoods or cease automobiles primarily based on who somebody is — we cease primarily based on what they do behind the wheel,” it mentioned.
However immigrant rights supporters contend that the patrols have centered on components of town the place the vast majority of residents are individuals of colour.
“All indicators level to this being racial profiling supposed to terrorize the center of the immigrant and refugee group,” Sherman Luna mentioned. “What we’ve heard is that THP is flagging individuals down for issues like a damaged taillight or tinted home windows.”
Sherman Luna believes a few of these being detained can be allowed to remain within the nation in the event that they have been capable of obtain competent authorized illustration at an immigration listening to. As a substitute, she has heard that individuals are agreeing to be deported out of worry that they may spend months or years in immigration detention.
About 9% of the Nashville metropolitan space inhabitants of about 2 million are immigrants, with many from Mexico and Honduras, in response to the Migration Coverage Institute’s evaluation of census information. The town additionally has a big Kurdish inhabitants residing alongside refugees from Sudan, Myanmar and different international locations.
“It’s a method to strike worry into our vibrant, various, lovely neighborhoods,” Sherman Luna mentioned.
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