RELEASE: TIRRC Votes Releases Federal Endorsements, Urges Voters to Remember Damage Done to Tennessee Communities by Trump’s Immigration Policies

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 23, 2020

CONTACT
Hamp Price, hamp@tirrcvotes.org, 256-749-6420

TIRRC Votes Releases Federal Endorsements, Urges Voters to Remember Damage Done to Tennessee Communities by Trump’s Immigration Policies

The group will capitalize on the energy at the top of the ticket to ensure immigrant voters and progressive allies cast their vote to elect pro-immigrant champions up and down the ballot.

NASHVILLE — TIRRC Votes, the political arm of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, has endorsed Marquita Bradshaw for US Senate and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for President and Vice President.

“Since day one of his campaign, Trump has attacked and scapegoated immigrants and refugees as a way to hide his shortcomings and failures, directly harming thousands of Tennessee families,” said Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, executive director of TIRRC Votes. “We need leadership that brings us together, no matter what we look like or where we were born, and heals the racial wounds that have plagued our country, instead of dividing us.”

From ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to gutting the refugee resettlement program, the devastating effects of Trump’s extreme immigration agenda have been seen across Tennessee over the last four years. 

In addition, the administration revived the use of aggressive, militaristic worksite raids in 2018, starting in east Tennessee. In what was the largest worksite raid in over a decade at the time, immigration agents stormed a meat processing plant in Bean Station and arrested 97 workers using excessive force and racial profiling.

Emboldened by anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the White House, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has continued to terrorize communities and separate families using violence and deception. In two separate incidents in Nashville, ICE agents shot an unarmed man while trying to detain him and tried to separate a man from a child in his care, sparking a neighborhood response to protect him. 

Policies that encourage cooperation between local law-enforcement agencies and immigration enforcement have also expanded under the administration. Such entanglement led to the 15 month detention of journalist Manuel Duran after he was arrested at a Memphis protest in 2018, a case that made international news. In Knox County, former sheriff J.J. Jones, was approved in 2017 for the 287g program that deputized local sheriffs as immigration enforcement, terrorizing immigrants who call Knoxville home. Sheriff Jones's application was previously rejected under the Obama administration because of his troubling record of civil rights violations. 

“The Trump presidency has been devastating for Tennessee's immigrant and refugee communities. He must be a one-term president,” said Judith Clerjeune, policy manager at TIRRC Votes. “We'll be working to ensure immigrant voters and their progressive allies are joining the movement and casting their votes for candidates up and down the ballot that will work to make sure everyone is valued, treated equally, and given the opportunities they need to thrive.”

These federal endorsements follow the organization’s earlier endorsements of Gabby Salinas (HD97) and Gloria Johnson (HD13).

While the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the group’s ability to physically knock on doors, TIRRC Votes will be using an innovative combination of relational organizing, digital, and phone, text, and mail to reach tens of thousands of voters across the state, including those who may be voting for the first time.

“TIRRC Votes has proven itself as one of the most powerful electoral machines in the state, capable of expanding the electorate, winning elections and closing gaps in tight races,” said Pratik Dash, civic engagement manager at TIRRC Votes. “By focusing on community organizing and power building, TIRRC Votes is building a movement of immigrant voters and progressive allies across the state that can turn the tide in Tennessee.”

TIRRC Votes launched in 2018 in response to the unrelenting assault on immigrant families. For the 2018 midterm elections, the new group developed a large-scale electoral mobilization program that engaged nearly 170,000 voters, made 36,000 phone calls and knocked on nearly 19,500 doors.

In 2019, TIRRC Votes invested in the Nashville municipal elections to elect the most progressive metro council in history. Twenty-one of the group’s endorsed candidates won their races, including the historic wins of Zulfat Suara, the first Black immigrant and Muslim to serve on the council, and Sandra Sepulveda, the first Latina elected to the council. A powerful team of more than 60 canvassers knocked on over 14,000 doors and contacted more than 42,000 voters in Nashville.