Morristown, Tennessee subjected to the largest workplace raid by immigration authorities in over a decade. with Camila Fyler, Integration Director, The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition who has been stationed in Morristown since the raid to help coordinate financial Assistance to the families and secure legal representation for immigrant detainees. and Beatrice who has experienced the loss of many of her family member in the raids.in which hundreds of families have been impacted
Federal agents, with the assistance of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, stormed into Southeastern Provision, a meat-processing plant in Bean Station, TN. As helicopters circled above the factory and agents blocked doors, about 100 workers were rounded up and filed into buses without & opportunity to explain who they were, how long they had been there, or whether they were subject to federal immigration law at all. 54 community members living in East Tennessee for decades, some of whom had devoted over ten years of labor to that factory, were shipped out of the state without even a chance to say goodbye to their spouses and children. Their families were told nothing, and were left to wonder what had happened to loved ones who never came home.
This is a humanitarian crisis. At least 160 children are missing a parent, nearly 600 students in a single school district have stayed home out of fear, and participation in the economy and community has been chilled. Hundreds of families whose lives have been torn apart.
It's hard to imagine another kind of crisis that would cause 5% of the children in the district to stay home that wouldn't trigger some kind of intervention or at least public response. Well talk with the people in Morristown & its surrounding communities about the human costs of this unconscionable abuse of power on the children devastated by this assault on their families, and on the thousands who are rightly afraid to go to work, take their kids to school, or even leave their homes. The disaster stemming from the recent immigration raid continues to unfold. But, we know from similar raids in previous decades that the impact on children's health, on the school system, and on the local economy can last for years to come. This is no time for silence!
produce by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program knash@igc.org