Immigration

Javir, whose last name is withheld for privacy reasons, migrated to the US from Venezuela. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Harassment in Venezuela, political targeting in the US: Migrants to Tennessee tell their stories

BY: - October 18, 2022

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 guidelines announced by the Biden Administration will give some Venezuelan migrants a path to temporary residence in the United States. In September, Venezuelans who crossed the U.S. border from Mexico waited in line for dinner at a hotel provided by the Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

New plan for Venezuelan migrants will accept some into the U.S., send others to Mexico

BY: - October 18, 2022

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. […]

Protesters in front of U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexanders offices on West End in 2017. (Photo: John Partipilo)

8,000 Tennessee DACA recipients in limbo after appeals court rules immigrant program illegal

BY: - October 6, 2022

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 […]

Southeastern Provision slaughterhouse in Grainger County. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)

Feds to settle suit over 2018 Tennessee slaughterhouse raid targeting Latino workers

BY: - September 5, 2022

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 […]

The exterior of TIRRC's new building explodes with colorful murals. (Photo: John Partipilo)

TIRRC Votes harnesses “Black and brown political power”

BY: - August 15, 2022

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 […]

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Grainger County slaughterhouse workers push back on claims from feds

BY: - July 27, 2022

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 […]

Nicole Garcia Aguilar, a transgender woman, looks over donated clothing in the hotel in which she lives while she looks for permanent housing. (Photo: John Partipilo)

For LGBTQ Tennesseans from immigrant families, culture may add extra hurdle to acceptance

BY: - July 7, 2022

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 […]

Photo of a pork processing plant, provided by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Federal judge doesn’t buy IRS ploy in Grainger County slaughterhouse suit

BY: - June 14, 2022

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 […]

COMMENTARY
TIJUANA, MEXICO - MARCH 26: Children play in the makeshift shelter camps for Central American migrants while awaiting the US authorities to allow them to enter to begin their process of asylum into the country, on March 26, 2021 in Tijuana, Mexico. Following the change of direction in immigration policy, the United States government is once again allowing asylum seekers to cross the border. (Photo by Francisco Vega/Getty Images)

Stockard on the Stump: Lawmakers create ‘bureaucracy’ to oversee immigrant child care

BY: - June 10, 2022

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 […]

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 12: An immigration activist participates in a rally near the U.S. Supreme Court as they demonstrate to highlight immigrant essential worker rights, on May 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. The group marched on Capitol Hill as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a subcommittee hearing on the role of essential immigrant workers in America." (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Memphis attorney part of group leading suit against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

BY: - June 9, 2022

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 […]

Ashraf Fam, second from right, in the Nashville Mayor John Cooper's office, with city officials and Elmahaba Director Lydia Yousef. (Photo: Submitted)

Tennessee’s Arabic speakers work to add their language to driver license tests

BY: - June 3, 2022

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 […]

Mourners at a vigil for Dember Chavez, who died on a Nashville construction site. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Grief at The Griff: Nashville construction boom exacts deadly toll on Hispanic workers

BY: - May 23, 2022

Across the street from The Griff, a luxurious apartment complex in Germantown, protesters dressed in black held flowers and crosses in memory of the Hispanic construction workers that have died over the last two years in Nashville’s booming construction industry. Across from the crowd stood a towering chain link fence preventing trespassers from entering another […]