Nashville, Tenn. – Federal Federal Immigration Officials have arrested more than 100 people in a joint operation with the Tennessee road patrol, leaving many in the Immigrants community of Nashville uncertain and worried.
“None of us have seen something like that,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee immigrant and refugee rights coalition on Friday.
The operation with the application of immigration and customs of the United States is a reminder of how local and Jurisdictions for the application of state law They are critical for President Donald Trump’s Mass deportation plans. Last week, Florida officials promoted A joint operation with ice that resulted in 1,120 immigration arrests.
Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee Recently signed a law that created an immigration application division with the State Security and Security Department, which includes the road patrol. He is one of several republican officials who commit to using state resources to carry out Trump’s plans.
Meanwhile, city officials in Nashville’s democratic strength have rejected participation and criticized arrests. Nashville’s law director, Wally Dietz, said the state-federal operation, which began on May 3, caught everyone in the city’s government by surprise.
Responding to concerns about the presence of the Nashville police outside an ICE office, Dietz said Wednesday that the city “receives additional patrol requests for a variety of reasons and responds as the resources are available.” He said he did not know who was detained and that, when he requested more information from the road patrol, they told him to submit a request for public records.
The road patrol said Friday that he made 588 stops in the joint operation with ICE, which took the custody of 103 under investigation by immigration violations.
The stops “led to the recovery of illegal drugs and firearms, drawing dangerous elements from the street and causing Tennessee to be safer,” said the road patrol. A person was sought in a murder in El Salvador.
The road patrol said the stops are based solely on driver’s behavior. “We do not enter neighborhoods or stop vehicles depending on who someone is, we stop based on what it does behind the steering wheel,” he said.
But supporters of immigrants’ rights argue that patrols have focused on parts of the city where most residents are people of color.
“All signs suggest that this is the racial profile destined to terrorize the heart of the immigrant and refugee community,” said Sherman Luna. “What we have heard is that THP is marking people for things like a broken back light or dyed windows.”
Sherman Luna believes that some of the detainees could remain in the country if they could receive competent legal representation at an immigration hearing. Instead, she has heard that people agree to be deported for fear that months or years can spend in immigration detention.
About 9% of the population of the Nashville metropolitan area of approximately 2 million are immigrants, with many from Mexico and Honduras, according to the analysis of the Institute of Migration Policy of the Census data. The city also has a large Kurdish population that lives together with refugees from Sudan, Myanmar and other countries.
“It is a strategy to affect the fear of our vibrant, diverse and beautiful neighborhoods,” said Sherman Luna.
