ICE RAID LEAVES TOWN REELING
federal government, to the police, to their church leaders, to each other.
Donations of food, clothing and toys for families of the workers streamed in at such volume there was a traffic jam to get into the parking lot of a church.
Professors at the college extended a speaking invitation to a young man whose brother and uncle were detained in the raid. Schoolteachers cried as they tried to comfort students whose parents were suddenly gone.
There was standing room only at a prayer vigil that drew about 1,000 people to a school gym.
Here, based on interviews with dozens of workers and townspeople, and in their own words (some edited for length and clarity), is how it happened.
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Angela Smith, 42, a longtime resident of the area: My first thought was one of sorrow. Oh my goodness, this is going to hurt so many people in the community. It’s going to hurt their kids, our kids. It’s going to have a ripple effect throughout the entire community because these people are part of Morristown. Immediately, I drive over to the parish center to see what I can do to help. I had to park way at the end because it was so packed. I go in, I said, I’m an attorney, how can I help?
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The April 5 operation signaled a return to the high-profile immigration raids that last happened during the presidency of George W. Bush. President Barack Obama’s chief workplace enforcement tactic was to conduct payroll audits and impose fines on businesses found to employ unauthorized workers. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has vowed to quintuple work site enforcement. Last week, ICE agents arrested 114 employees at two work sites operated by a gardening company in Ohio.
All 97 workers taken into custody in the Tennessee raid now face deportation, though several have been released pending hearings. And much of the town is reeling. Up to 160 U.s.-born children have a parent who could soon be ordered to leave the country; many families are relying on handouts.
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Nataly Luna, 12, whose father was detained: My mom had told us one day it could happen, that one day one of them would be taken. The hardest thing is talking about it.
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After the raid, immigrant advocates organized a peace march, and Nataly carried a sign bearing the image of her father, a native of Mexico who had been working in the United States without papers for 20 years before he was taken into custody at the meat plant that day. “We Miss You,” the sign read. “We need you by our side. You are the best father.”
The plant
Unauthorized workers from Mexico and Guatemala formed the backbone of the workforce at Southeastern Provision, located 10 miles north of Morristown in the town of Bean Station. They killed, skinned, decapitated and cut up cattle whose parts were used for, among other things, oxtail soup and a cured meat snack exported to Africa.
Immigrants were critical to the family-owned abattoir’s growth over the last decade. Many of those affected by the raid, fearing further action from the authorities, spoke on the condition that only their first names be used.
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Elisabeth, 38, whose husband was detained in the raid: He worked there for nine years. When he started, there were only around 10 people. The plant expanded thanks to the Hispanics. It was hard work. He would come home tired and say, ‘We killed 300 cows today.’ In the early years, they’d kill only 15 cows a day. A few months ago, the workers were talking about striking for better pay and work conditions.
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With the $11.50 hourly wage that her husband, Tomas, made at the plant and the $9 she earns as a seamstress, Elisabeth and her family could afford the $700 rent for a house big enough to accommodate their six children, three from her previous marriage, and live a relatively stable life, she said. To be sure, the work was heavy, gory and low-paying. Day after day, the workers endured the smell of manure, blood and flesh. But Southeastern Provision offered a major advantage over other businesses: The management, several workers said, didn’t seem to expect them to bother with fake work authorization documents.
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Alma, 35, a native of Mexico who worked at the plant for two years: It was the one place where we could get work using our real names. I made $10 an hour. My job was to operate a big machine that takes the nails out of the hooves and one that slices the skin from the cows’ faces.
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Federal authorities said there was evidence that the company had run afoul of the law. In an affidavit, the Internal Revenue Service said the company had withdrawn millions of dollars in cash and told bank employees the money was needed to pay “Hispanics” — suggesting that the company knew it was hiring unauthorized workers and evaded payment of federal employment taxes.
An informant hired at the plant in 2017 told investigators that workers felt they couldn’t complain about poor working conditions because of their immigration status. Some had to work unpaid overtime, the informant reported. He said he saw others required to work with “extremely harsh” chemicals without protective eyewear.
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Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition: So far, it has been the workers who have borne all the consequences of the employer’s violations. ICE could have decided to audit this employer, and forced him to pay fines and correct his practices. Instead they conducted a raid that left over 160 children without a parent from one day to the next.
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No charges have been filed against the company. A federal criminal investigation is ongoing, said Bryan Cox, an ICE spokesman. The owner, James Brantley, said he couldn’t talk about the case. His lawyer, Norman Mckellar, also declined to comment. “We are in a difficult situation,” he said.
The raid
It was just after 9 a.m., about two hours after more than 100 workers had arrived for the 7 a.m. shift, when shouts of “inmigración, inmigración” rang out across the plant.
Alma went numb. In the cutting line, another worker, Raymunda, put down the butcher’s knife she was holding and raced toward an exit. So did dozens of others, their blood-smeared smocks and protective aprons weighing them down. They soon realized that ICE agents, backed by state law enforcement, blocked every door.
Agents cornered and grabbed workers, sometimes barking “Calma!” in Spanish to those who cried and screamed. Some workersreported that agents pointed guns at them to stop them from fleeing. “I stuck myself between the cows,” Raymunda said. It was to no avail.
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Raymunda: We didn’t come here to kill or to steal. We came here purely to work. I have a sister and we were both picked up at the same time.
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Within minutes, all the Latinos at the plant were rounded up, including at least one American citizen and several other people who had legal authorization to work.
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One of the workers who is an American citizen: An officer with an ICE vest on grabbed me by my shoulder. He grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. I told him he was hurting me and he told me to shut up. They were grabbing people however. For me, basically all the Hispanics because of their color were handcuffed. The white people just stood there.
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In groups of about a dozen, according to several workers interviewed, Latinos were placed mainly in plastic handcuffs, escorted to white vans with tinted windows and transported to a National Guard Armory. A helicopter hovered above.
Word began to spread that “la migra,” as ICE is known, was in the area. Panicked immigrants walked off the job at other companies in the region and frantically texted each other.
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Veronica Galvan, 29, a wellknown figure in the Latino community: I started getting message after message. Is immigration in town? Do you know? I started going through my news feed. I need to find out, especially because my mom works at one of these plants. I pull up to the armory. All these text messages were coming. Are you there? Are you there? Please tell me something, I am desperate. The first thing I thought was, I am going to livestream it on my Facebook.
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Galvan described how she arrived to a crowd amassed behind yellow police tape surrounding the armory, as state troopers stood guard. Relatives of plant workers were crying and obsessively checking their cellphones for news.
Inside, workers said they waited hours to be interviewed and fingerprinted by agents, a process delayed by computer glitches. When agents asked women who had young children to identify themselves, virtually every hand went up.
By late afternoon, agents had released only a handful of people, mainly those in frail health or who had proved they had the legal right to work in the United States.
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Angela Kanipe, a thirdgrade teacher and bus driver: Two non-hispanic kids on the bus were having a conversation about how they were worried about their friends. And they were talking about how God was going to be mad because he doesn’t want you to be mean to people. Why would someone take away someone’s parents? When I think about it, it just breaks my heart. It’s hard not to cry.
Johnny Gallardo, 15, Raymunda’s son: I saw a lot of Hispanic kids crying in the hall at school. I called my dad and asked, ‘Are you OK?’ He said, ‘I’m OK, but this thing happened to your mom.’ I went to soccer practice like he told me. I tried to take my mind off it. I just played. I have a goal. I want to go to college. Could my dream be destroyed by this?
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In the evening, Johnny headed to the armory with his father and 7-year-old sister, Brittany, who was weeping. They brought insulin injections to be delivered to his mother, who is diabetic.
Families were gathering in an elementary school across from the armory. By nightfall, about 100 people, including teachers, clergy, lawyers and other community members had assembled. Volunteers distributed pizza, tamales and drinks.
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Jeff Perry, superintendent of Hamblen County Schools: I got a call from some of our staff members that they had detained several of the parents at the armory. So we had several hundred people beside the road of the armory. As the numbers grew, the situation became more and more dangerous. We provided access to a school facility to keep folks safe. A lot of our administrators were there, several of our principals there to comfort kids.
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As the night wore on, about 30 of the detainees, including Raymunda and Alma, were gradually released.
A little after 1 a.m., the agents announced that no one else would be let go. Workers still in detention — 54 in all — were put on buses to Alabama and then Louisiana.
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Elisabeth: I was hoping my husband would be freed. Others came out. But my husband never came out. My husband never came. They have ruined our family. He is a good person. He never mistreated me. He cared for my three older children as if they were his own. My favorite moment was when we all sat together to dinner, blessed the meal and shared our day with each other: What did you do, how was school? We all talked about our day.
Irvin Roman, 21, Elisabeth’s son: He helped with everything. Now, I have to literally step into his shoes.
The church
St. Patrick Catholic Church’s parish center was converted into a crisis response center. All day, people arrived with food, clothing, toys and supplies for the affected families. At one point, six trucks waited to unload donations.
Volunteers, who showed up by the dozens, received color-coded tags: Yellow for teachers, white for lawyers, and pink for general helpers, who prepared meals in the kitchen, packed grocery bags and performed other tasks.
Bleary-eyed immigrants packed the main room. In smaller rooms, teachers entertained children with stories while their parents received legal services.
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Colleen Jacobs, a youth ministry coordinator: There was definitely crying, but you could tell you were in a place of people of faith. You still felt love and connection, more than you felt sadness and despair.
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Hundreds of children missed school after the raid. On the evening of April 7, about 120 teachers and school staff packed the church’s basement to talk about how to assist students. On a poster board, they scrawled their feelings. “I cried Thursday night wondering which of my students were without parents that night,” one teacher wrote. “I feel helpless,” wrote another.
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Jordyn Horner, a school librarian, on Facebook: These past two days have been the hardest of my career and I wasn’t prepared. Finding ways to comfort your students who are in tears, upset, angry, and afraid is nearly impossible.
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On Monday, three days after the raid, a prayer vigil at Hillcrest Elementary School drew nearly 1,000 people who sat in the bleachers, in folding chairs on the court and, when the chairs ran out, they stood along the walls. A 16-year-old named Ramon stood up to speak.
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Ramon: I want to see my mother again. My mother is the only person I have. I live alone now.
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Two nights later, St. Patrick Church’s center still brimmed with activity as immigrants and supporters gathered to make posters and banners for a procession through downtown Morristown. Smith, the longtime resident, brought her 8-year-old daughter, Laurel, figuring it was an important lesson. “This community is a snapshot of the dissonance of America on immigration,” Smith said.
At Walters State Community College, instructors gathered in an auditorium to hear Jehova Arzola, 20, an engineering honors student whose brother and uncle were detained, describe his family’s ordeal. No one knew when, or if, they would see them again, he said.