Hundreds gathered outside Nashville’s ICE Field Office on Thursday morning holding signs, candles and flowers for a vigil to remember 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Demonstrators called for the agent who shot Good to be arrested, and for the end of immigration enforcement operations in Nashville.
The vigil was organized by Music City Migra Watch, a volunteer organization dedicated to monitoring ICE activity in Middle Tennessee. Mourners sang, prayed and played the trumpet in between speeches, led by Ashley Warbington with Music City Migra Watch.
“They don’t want to be watched. They don’t like accountability. They don’t like us documenting what they’re doing. But today, just like every other day, we still show up and we say, no,” she said. “You can push us all the way to Trinity Lane and we’ll still show up.”
Rose Gilbert WPLN News Ashley Wargington (left), a volunteer with Music City Migra Watch, hugs one of the mourners at the vigil.
Demonstrators stood in the street, just outside the property line for the Tennessee Department of Homeland Security, which houses the ICE Field Office. That property line was marked by “No Trespassing” signs, and a pair of Homeland Security officers stood nearby and kept an eye on the vigil.
Warbington said those signs are new, and part of a bigger trend: she and other observers are no longer allowed to accompany people to their immigration check-ins, and that ICE agents have become increasingly aggressive towards observers. On two occasions, she claimed, agents drew their weapons on Music City Migra Watch volunteers.
The Tennessee Department of Homeland Security has not yet responded to requests for comment or confirmation.
Rose Gilbert WPLN News “No trespassing” signs outside the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which houses the Nashville ICE Field Office.
“These escalations have real consequences. We saw that yesterday in Minneapolis, where Renee was shot and killed,” said Warbington.
Luis Pedraza is a volunteer with Music City Migra Watch and The Remix Way, a local social justice group. He is a U.S. citizen, but has family members who are undocumented, including a brother he said was deported from America to Mexico a few years ago.
“These feelings that I have —these feelings of frustration, of anger, of rage — I have to choose to channel it to hold these guys accountable. Do I stay angry and just keep it to myself and walk away from all this? Or do I fight for you? For me? For everyone who’s watching? That’s the choice that I make. And that is the choice that you should be making too,” he said, addressing the crowd of mourners.
“All you have to do is care. All you have to do is choose to lock arms, not to run away, but to be like Renee Good.”
In between speakers, Warbington led the crowd in a chant: “A better world is possible!”
Rose Gilbert WPLN News Demonstrators held signs denouncing ICE.
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