-Madison Thorn, Photographer
Friends, I’m rushing to send this note to you because it includes a few ways for you to get/stay involved locally, following the arrests this weekend of immigrants in Nashville, and how to resist the national playbook of inciting generalized fear while terrorizing specific communities.
Protesters and activists were present to provide encouragement to those arrested and their families during this tragic affair.
-Ashley Warbington
-Madison Thorn, Photographer
But we need more to show up and engage! Please print and share the following flyer and ask businesses throughout the city to post it so immigrants and their loved ones know what to do if approached by ICE. (Just click and drag it to your photos).
Next, please attend at least one of the following meetings (the second one is via Zoom) happening on Tuesday and Wednesday to ask for local accountability and learn more about how you can engage to offer help, protection, and support.
Since the election, The ReMix TN (Donate HERE) volunteers have met directly with over 500 individuals and families, along with sanctuary churches, to get folks ready for what happened Saturday night/Sunday morning with the arrest of our friends, neighbors, relatives, and residents. This targeted raid in South Nashville by state troopers and ICE officials racially profiled over 150 drivers and passengers, held them in the ICE facility, and then bused them out of Nashville to places unknown (some have been tracked to a holding facility in Louisiana) without providing contact information to their families. But while the community showed up, THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN IN OUR COMMUNITY.
-Madison Thorn, Photographer
And while ICE said they focused on areas known for car crashes and gang activity, it is obvious they wanted to test the limits of the Nashville community’s commitment to protecting and defending our residents. After the laws passed by the Tennessee Legislature in the Session that just concluded, it is not surprising that these arrests were a coordinated effort between the State of Tennessee and the current Washington, DC administration.
At a Press Conference this afternoon called by the Immigrant Caucus of Metro Council, Councilperson Terry Vo and others raised important questions about ICE activity in Nashville, and whether any departments within Metro had collaborated or assisted ICE in any manner to carry out these raids.
The following letter was sent by representatives of the Tennessee Legislature and Metro Council to protest ICE’s invasion into our community.
During a Press Conference earlier today, Mayor O’Connell confirmed that State and Federal officials collaborated on the raid to target, capture, and expel immigrants from Nashville with no due process and while withholding their names, the location where they were sent, and the charges brought against them. He also said Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) assured him they had not been involved but had merely shown up to “manage the protesters.”
(NOTE: I have attended several protests in Nashville where no MNPD officers were present, so at what point were they alerted that raids were going to happen? If MNPD knew, isn’t it a form of collusion not to alert the Mayor’s office or elected Councilmembers from those districts? And with this many arrests occurring- 150 in one night, plus numerous other stops of drivers- how could MNPD not have been aware that this was happening, when activists had been alerted and were driving around monitoring the stops and arrests?)
Here is what Music City Migrawatch posted following the Press Conference:
The Mayor, along with the Community Foundation Executive Director, Hal Cado, announced the “Belonging Fund,” a partnership intended to provide for the needs of the immigrant families affected by these raids. Hopefully, there will be a method to funnel some of these funds to the much-needed service of immigration attorneys because many of those arrested are unlikely to have the resources to pay for representation. Also, a method to distribute funds to the activist groups, including The ReMix TN and Music City Migrawatch, who have been the “boots on the ground” in the effort to protect and defend our immigrant neighbors.
And its important that the Mayor be encouraged to pursue one of the points he raised - why is the State, in the form of TN State Troopers, getting involved in what is typically a federal issue, in the form of ICE and what is the boundary between our city, the state and the federal authorities when it comes to keeping our community “SAFE?”
Here’s a quick list of folks you can call to ask questions about this tragedy and express your concerns- put together on the morning of the arrests by some of the activists:
A National Organizing Effort - Learn, Join, Take Action
Research has shown that it only takes 3.5 % of the population- that means only 4 of every 10 people you know- to be engaged in non-violent action to bring a halt to authoritarianism and totalitarian regimes, like the one we are facing in DC and that swooped into Nashville this weekend.
If you want to learn more about how best to join others to organize and resist, The Resistance Lab is a terrific option. Initiated by Congressperson Pramila Jayapal and others, it links folks from across the county in an effot to “understand how democracies fall and the most effective resistance movements that have challenged authoritarians and dictators; to turn anger, fear and frustration into action in the short-term while also preparing for a coordinated resistance movement for the longer term; and to build community across the country that can help grow our movement.”
To watch the 2.01 Resistance lab, click HERE, and to sign up for a repeat of the 1.01 Resistance Lab training, sign up for the June 1st repeat HERE.
WE MUST BE PREPARED- They brought their cruelty to Nashville once. Let’s not allow it to continue or reoccur.
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