In Tennessee, Sheriff’s departments can voluntarily cooperate with ICE without the input of the people who elected them. Our Robertson County Sheriff has been cooperating and their actions have largely been going unnoticed until recently. Young Hispanic men are being taken into custody after they appear in Traffic Court for minor violations. This drew coverage from a New4 in Nashville last week and RobCoTNIndivisible decided to have a ICE Out protest at the Sheriff’s Department at 1 PM last Tuesday (3 days notice). We promoted on the Indivisible and Democratic Party Social Media and sent emails to the distribution lists (about 550) and hoped for the best.
When I showed up just before 1 there was about a dozen people there AND the News4 and Telemundo reporters. The News 4 reporter was going to do a live report at 3 PM. New4 came as a follow-up to the story they drew attention to the week before. He interviewed several older white people. The angle was that old white people in deeply red Robertson County are showing up to support their Hispanic neighbors. More people gradually joined. I was amazed at the number of young Hispanic people. It was sunny and windy and in the upper 30’s. A lawyer came out and told the group that Traffic Court is Wednesday morning so after the live TV coverage, we decided to come back the next day at 830 AM.
A smaller group showed up Wednesday morning. It was overcast and windy and felt like 25 degrees. There were some repeat protesters from the day before and some new people. Because of the cold, many did not stay long. The cold drove half of the group away before I thought to take a picture. We lasted about 2 hours.
We also decided to start a weekly protest – Springfield Speaks Out (SSO) on Saturdays at the busiest intersection in town. The primary goal for yesterday’s SSO was to promote the No Kings 3 next weekend. The picture in the title is from first SSO. Craig made a bunch of yard signs to advertise No KINGS and several other signs on various HOT topics. We had our ice chest of water and knew that a few people were planning to attend. Several people stopped to find out what was happening. A young man dropped off some Gatorade. About a dozen young Hispanic people were there and a group of young men happened by and joined us for a while. Many drivers ignored us, About a third or so were openly supportive and a small number were negative.
After the protest, a group of 11 gathered downtown to get informal instruction on “Court watch”. Music City Migra Watch provides trainings in Nashville and a few people from Springfield have been trained but didn’t know how to operationalize the information on their own. We are hoping we can get a training scheduled up in Springfield. In the meantime, we know more about watching for signs of ICE roaming neighborhoods and how to report if we see something suspicious.
The package of Immigration bills proposed by the Republican supermajority in the TN Legislature is proceeding. Likely by mid April we will have a legal Secret Police Force in TN.
I have at least a couple of weeks to get my campaign website and social media ready to launch. My Committee that reports our finances to the state is Citizens for Tamara. My campaign will be Bavendam4RobCo I will be doing videos “talking to the camera” about various topics – totally out of my comfort zone.
Once we get through the NO Kings 3 Protest next weekend, I will be turning over the RobCoTNIndivisible to others. Aside from protests, I think they will focus on starting a Mutual Aid Society for RobCo.
The journey continues……..
Tamara Unleashed 