September 6, 2019 (Nashville). Yesterday morning, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent opened fire on three Latino men who were heading to work. Plain-clothed agents approached their work van and demanded to see their IDs. When one person exercised his right to refuse to show his ID and drove away, ICE agents escalated a civil matter into the use of deadly force. Workers’ Dignity condemns ICE’s increasingly violent terrorizing of our community members. We urge all Nashville elected officials and mayoral and metro council candidates to take all steps necessary to end collaboration with ICE and speak. 

Some details about yesterday are unclear. But this is what we do know:

• The ICE agents who wounded one of the three workers are the same who were stopped by neighbors and community members who formed a human chain around a father and his child in Hermitage on July 22. Those same agents were caught on video lying to the father and his child after they had exercised their right to stay in the father’s work van.
• These are the same ICE agents who have targeted people at the Davidson County Courthouse.
• The shooting came just two days after Mayor Briley signed an executive order discouraging city agencies from voluntarily cooperating with ICE.
• ICE is targeting workers where they congregate to go to work. 
• ICE, media outlets, and others have painted the perpetrator as the victim, misrepresenting the ICE agent’s act of aggression as self-defense. 

The decision by ICE agents to target laborers where they congregate each morning sends a clear message. They will racially profile, intimidate, and even shoot to kill people who are simply trying to get to work. In practice, this serves the same function as workplace raids in Bean Station and Mississippi – spread fear, tear apart families, detain, and deport fellow workers. Over the past 30 hours, we and other organizations have been inundated with calls by people traumatized by yesterday’s brazen action. 

This is not simply an escalation of violence; it is also a reaction to an increasingly organized community of immigrants and allies in Nashville. We stand with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, The MIX, Nashville Welcoming Committee, trade unions, and all those who are organizing our communities to exercise our rights, organizing fellow workers and neighbors to protect each other, and building a rapid response network to respond to ICE violence. And we stand on the shoulders of Black community members who have demanded accountability in face of systematic racial profiling and police killings of Jocques Clemmons and Dan Dan Hambrick. 

Workers’ Dignity calls on Mayor David Briley, mayoral candidate John Cooper, and Metro Council members to take all steps in their power to end Nashville government’s cooperation with ICE. We demand an independent, community-led, investigation into what happened yesterday. ICE has once again demonstrated that their presence has made our communities less safe. 

We ask all Nashvillians to speak up, take action, and join in the multiple efforts to stand with immigrant workers. We will not rest until all of us are free.