Twenty-two immigrants got arrested by the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) during a raid at their workplace in a storage warehouse owned by the Expeditors International company. They got booked for fraud due to working with fake identifications.
The event took place when their boss called them to a supposed meeting, but the workers got an unpleasant surprise when they showed. Many of the arrested individuals will have a court hearing on Thursday, but the charges will be difficult to beat.
“Now obviously these people are being technically charged with fraud and this is drastically going to affect their options in immigration court,” said the head of the advocacy group Latino Memphis, Mauricio Calvo. “I have to say, that’s very creative.”
Thomas Byrd, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, confirmed that the raid did indeed take place. THP, however, was the agency which carried out the raid that put nearly two dozen people in the Shelby County Jail.
A THP spokesman stated that although the federal agency ICE helped them in their efforts, this was a state case. Byrd backed his statement by saying, “At this point, it’s a state case. We do have expertise in document fraud.”
“We actually train a lot of the Tennessee law enforcement agencies on how to detect fraudulent documents.”
The THP spokesman also assured that the raid was not targetting Hispanic workers. “It had nothing to do with them being Hispanic,” he said. “They just happened to be Hispanic this time.” Two men paid bail but immigration officials picked them up shortly after.
Article inspired by CommercialAppeal // 20 arrested at Memphis logistics company; processing took place at immigration office, state charges filed