Immigration
My City Academy holds graduation for Nashville new Americans
Nashville Mayor John Cooper handed diplomas to graduates of the My City Academy on Thursday, saying the city needs more people that looked like them in government to reflect its diversity. “You’re graduating into a job, and the job is communicating what the city can do,” said Cooper. Since 2012, Nashville has sought to create […]
Harassment in Venezuela, political targeting in the US: Migrants to Tennessee tell their stories
At 21 years old, Javir and her partner left Venezuela and traveled by foot through seven countries seeking a better life in the U.S. For months, she walked. She walked through Panama, Nicaragua, Columbia, Mexico. She passed cities and towns, risking assault, robbery and violence from those taking advantage of fleeing migrants. “You get to […]
New plan for Venezuelan migrants will accept some into the U.S., send others to Mexico
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced new guidelines for Venezuelan migrants, under which some will have a pathway to temporary residence in the United States and others who crossed the border without authorization will be sent back to Mexico. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced an agreement between Mexico and the U.S. […]
8,000 Tennessee DACA recipients in limbo after appeals court rules immigrant program illegal
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court panel once again left the fate of more than 8,000 Tennessee childhood recipients of a federal program temporarily protecting them from deportation in limbo. The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the federal program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), illegal while […]
Feds to settle suit over 2018 Tennessee slaughterhouse raid targeting Latino workers
A settlement is in the works in a lawsuit filed by Latino workers at a Grainger County slaughterhouse who were arrested without proof of wrongdoing in a controversial raid authorized by the U.S. government. U.S. District Judge Travis McDonough has issued a stay in the class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of Latino workers at the […]
TIRRC Votes harnesses “Black and brown political power”
Efforts to increase voter participation among immigrant communities led to increased turnout and elections of immigrant-rights candidates, said advocates. Following the August 4 primary election, the Tennessee Immigrant and Rights Coalition’s affiliate TIRRC Votes celebrated the election of several pro-immigrant candidates among school board races, district attorney races and other elected positions. “Our TIRRC Votes […]
Grainger County slaughterhouse workers push back on claims from feds
Federal agents’ claim they will be endangered by the public release of video showing an agent with his boot on the neck of a Latino worker during a raid of a Grainger County slaughterhouse is “baseless” and self-serving, workers’ attorneys contend in a new court filing. “These (agents) have offered the court zero evidence to […]
For LGBTQ Tennesseans from immigrant families, culture may add extra hurdle to acceptance
For some LGBTQ Tennesseans, growing up meant coming to the realization that their sexual orientation could be used against them by society, including members of their families. According to the Movement Advancement Project, about 3.5% of Tennessee adults identify as non-cisgender. But despite being only a small percentage of the state’s population, LGBTQ residents face […]
Federal judge doesn’t buy IRS ploy in Grainger County slaughterhouse suit
For nearly two years, the Internal Revenue Service refused to reveal its role in a controversial 2018 raid at a Grainger County slaughterhouse in a bid to shield its agents from a civil-rights lawsuit, court records show. When the ploy failed, those records also show, the IRS then tried to use the delay the agency’s […]
Stockard on the Stump: Lawmakers create ‘bureaucracy’ to oversee immigrant child care
Some Republican lawmakers went into shock last year when they heard a plane load of unaccompanied immigrant minors debarked in Chattanooga and left a group of children there. Rumors swirled that the federal government was dropping off immigrant kids across the state, creating fear they would take over the government and start running the state […]
Memphis attorney part of group leading suit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
A group of immigration-policy attorneys plan to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in an effort to force the processing of thousands of Green Cards to combat backlogs made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. IMMpact Litigation, a group comprised of several law firms, announced its intent to force the USCIS to process […]
Tennessee’s Arabic speakers work to add their language to driver license tests
When Ashraf Fam, an Egyptian immigrant, first came to Nashville 16 years ago, he quickly sought to get a driver’s license, knowing that transportation was key to survival in the U.S. The Tennessee Department of Motor Vehicles offers its driver license test in five languages—English, Spanish, German, Korean and Japanese—but not in other languages more […]