Today, in a the Tennessee town of Hermitage (a suburb of Nashville), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) attempted to arrest and detain an immigrant man who was with his son. The man KNEW HIS RIGHTS, and did not allow the agents into his house. Later, when the man and his son attempted to leave the house in the van he uses to get to work, the ICE agents used their vehicles to block him in.
Ice agents are ALSO not legally allowed to force people from their vehicles without a Judge’s warrant, so the man and his son stayed inside the van as the agents attempted to wait it out. Over the course of the next few hours, neighbors began to assemble around the home. They brought the man and his son water, and even filled the van with gas so they could keep it running to keep them cool in the sweltering Tennessee sun…
Finally, the neighbors formed a human chain to allow the the man and his son to safely reenter their home. Here is a Facebook Live recording of the neighbors protecting them. You should watch the whole thing. The people in the video are speaking Spanish, but you don’t need to be able to understand a word of Español to understand the bravery and love that is happening here…
We are living in a dystopian nightmare… And every day it seems like this republican administration creates another horror story to suck the hope from our hearts. But this is what hope looks like to me: It looks like neighbors lining up shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, and standing in solidarity against the hatred, bigotry, xenophobia, and fear that currently infects the soul of this nation — embodied by the cancer that is Donald Trump. This video is a remedy for hopelessness. I really don’t have a whole lot else to say. Watch it, share it with the people in your lives, and be inspired. There is hope… And it looks like bravely and actively loving our neighbors. Amen.
If this blog is one of the things that brings you hope, and if you’d like to help support it, you can help support it by becoming a Patron on PATREON… You can leave a tip on PAYPAL… Or you can follow me on FACEBOOK or on TWITTER. Also, thank you to Metro Council member Fabian Bedne for being an example of what compassionate leadership looks like in Nashville. Nashville folks: Support this man!