Bean Station ICE raid: Undocumented workers sue Trump administration
Bean Station ICE raid: Undocumented workers sue Trump administration
Matt Lakin, Knoxville News Sentinel
Published 12:34 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2019 | Updated 12:43 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2019
Seven undocumented workers will sue the Trump administration for violating their civil rights in last year's immigration raid on an East Tennessee slaughterhouse.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents "engaged in racial profiling and illegal search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fifth amendments," said Meredith Stewart, a senior attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights advocacy group. "This was law enforcement overreach, pure and simple."
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/489...t=405&fit=cropBuy PhotoAlberto Librado, in a "Land of the free" shirt, stands outside his home in White Pine, Tenn. July 3, 2018. He was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when they raided the Southeastern Provision meat-packing plant where he worked outside Bean Station in April. (Photo11: Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel)
Agents of ICE and the IRS raided the Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant on Helton Road in Bean Station in April and rounded up 97 undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala. The raid — the largest at a U.S. business in more than a decade at the time — set off a wave of protests statewide and led to failed attempts by state legislators to stiffen penalties for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.
"When a raid of this scale happens in a community, it's like a bomb goes off," said Stephanie Teatro, executive co-director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. "These people showed up for work as they did every day, and ICE agents came and ripped them from their families and their community."
Attorneys called the legal challenge the first of its kind on behalf of undocumented workers and said the lawsuit would be filed by Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/86f...t=405&fit=cropBuy PhotoFamily and friends of undocumented workers arrested in last month's ICE raid at the Southeastern Provision meat-packing plant in Bean Station, Tenn., demonstrate against immigration crackdowns and the Tennessee Legislature's passage of HB2315 at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City on Friday, May 4, 2018. (Photo11: Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel)
Workers arrested in the raid have complained of being threatened at gunpoint, shoved to the ground, punched and kicked by federal agents while white workers were allowed to go free.
"What happened in April was illegal," Stewart said.
"Agents did not know the identities or the immigration status of any individual workers. They were using race as a proxy for immigration status."
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/ac4...t=405&fit=cropSoutheastern Provision, a cattle slaughterhouse in Bean Station, Tenn., was the target of a federal immigration raid that rounded up 97 people on April 5, 2018. (Photo11: Travis Dorman / USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee)
About 40 of those workers have come home on bond to await uncertain fates as their cases wind through federal immigration court. Five remain jailed in out-of-state detention centers. The rest have either left the U.S. voluntarily or are in the process of deportation, Teatro said.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/996...t=405&fit=cropJames Brantley is the owner of a Grainger County slaughterhouse, Southeastern Provision, that was targeted in a federal immigration raid. (Photo11: Travis Dorman / USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee)
Most of those fighting deportation face waits of as long as two years.
The plant's owner, James Brantley, pleaded guilty to federal charges of fraud and tax evasion. He faces sentencing later this year.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1Q932C
