Thread: ‘Music City’ now a haven for refugees, immigrants, but t

‘Music City’ now a haven for refugees, immigrants, but tune may be changing

Hernán Rozemberg
Express-News Immigration Writer



NASHVILLE, Tenn. — MartÃ*n followed his brother’s path four years ago, uprooting himself from bustling Atlanta in search of a smaller, quieter city that welcomed Mexican immigrants such as himself with jobs, even if they were in the country illegally.

A decade earlier, Hami Hasan also made his way here, taken in by the U.S. government as a political refugee after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein annihilated his hometown in the Kurdish region of the country.

Nashville, widely known as the cradle of country music, has undergone a dramatic demographic transformation over the past two decades.

Though staying under the national immigration radar, it has seen a burgeoning refugee population and now has the largest Kurdish community in the country, paralleled by a steady influx of unauthorized immigrants.

Most of the undocumented newcomers are from Mexico but most arrived from other states, lured by word of a better place to live and work.

“Nashville has become a new destination city,â€

There is a HUGE difference between being a political refugee vs an illegal alien. One is here with permission and one is not.

Legal immigrants do not need havens and sanctuary.

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