A federal judge on Monday approved a definitive agreement to compensate migrant workers with more than a million dollars who were detained by agents of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE, in English) in a meat processing plant in Tennessee in 2018. .
The human rights defense organization Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the two plaintiffs along with the National Immigration Law Center, reported on the judge's ruling in a statement Monday afternoon.
The plaintiffs alleged that the federal agents violated the workers' civil rights, including using excessive force and arresting them simply because of their ethnicity.
In total, each affected individual will receive $550,000 in compensation and will also be able to obtain a letter from ICE confirming their membership in the group that can be used if they process immigration benefits.
The rest of the amount awarded will be used to cover legal fees and damages to other immigrants.
Meatpacking facilities during an ICE raid in 2018.NBC 10
“Nearly five years after the raid that tore apart entire families (even as it brought the community together), the final approval of the settlement of this class action lawsuit is a milestone in the fight for justice,” said Michelle Lapointe, deputy legal director for the rights center. humans.
“Our brave plaintiffs worked long hours in grueling conditions to provide food for this country.
While the agreement cannot heal the wounds caused by the violent 2018 raid, we are pleased with this vindication of their rights and the power of community organizing,” Lapointe added.
[They reveal a video of the violent ICE operation against Latino workers at a meat packing plant in Tennessee in 2018]
The April 5, 2018 raid was one of the largest ever recorded in the country, on a scale not seen in the past decade.
It was carried out by agents from ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Morristown Police Department, Hamblen County, according to the EFE news agency.
Federal authorities obtained a search warrant on suspicion that James Brantley, the owner of meatpacking company Southeastern Provisions, was engaging in financial crimes, including tax fraud, by paying his employees in cash without reporting it to the IRS.
The search warrant referred to the possible presence of undocumented immigrants at the plant, but did not authorize agents to detain employees, whether or not they had work documents, according to the lawsuit.
Screenshot from a video of the ICE raid on a meatpacking plant in Tennessee in 2018.NBC 10
Several plaintiffs claimed that the agents had used excessive force during the raid.
Video released in October of last year shows agents roughing up Latino employees as they were forced to line up to register them and take them in vans to a site about 20 miles from the plant.
The lawsuit insists that many of the detained workers were not asked about their documents until several hours after the raid.
Meanwhile, agents allowed many non-Latino workers to leave the plant.
Mexican authorities organize a raid of immigrants in Tapachula, Chiapas
Nov 14, 202200:36
The organizations that supported the immigrants in their lawsuit claimed that the raid caused harm to the families of the affected workers and to the entire community.
More than 150 children were separated from their parents and almost 600 were absent from school the next day out of fear.
“Someone asked me if I am happy with the outcome of this case,” Martha Pulido, a Morristown resident and one of the plaintiffs, said in the statement.
“The question made me remember that day.
Everything was normal, and then, in an instant, everything changed.
Now, I live with the aftermath of that bad experience.
He will stay with all families forever.
I'm not happy, but I'm glad to see that justice prevailed over injustice."