World News | USD 1 Million Settlement in Lawsuit over Federal Immigration Raid
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. A federal judge has approved a settlement of more than USD 1 million in a class action lawsuit that challenged a federal immigration raid at an eastern Tennessee meatpacking plant where about 100 people were arrested.
Knoxville (US), Feb 28 (AP) A federal judge has approved a settlement of more than USD 1 million in a class action lawsuit that challenged a federal immigration raid at an eastern Tennessee meatpacking plant where about 100 people were arrested.
The settlement approved by US District Judge Travis McDonough on Monday calls for the US government to pay USD 475,000 to six individual plaintiffs and an additional USD 550,000 to a class settlement fund for nearly 100 workers detained almost five years ago, news outlets reported.
The lawsuit claimed the Southeastern Provision workers' 4th and 5th Amendment constitutional rights were violated in April 2018 when armed officers raided the Bean Station plant, using racial slurs, shoving guns in their faces and punching one worker in the face.
It also alleged that officers didn't know workers' identities or immigration statuses, only that many were Hispanic.
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White workers at the plant, meanwhile, were not accosted, detained, searched or arrested, and many stood outside smoking during the raid, the lawsuit said.
During the raid, officers were helping to execute an Internal Revenue Service search warrant for financial documents related to James Brantley, the plant's owner. Agents did not have warrants for the arrest of any of the workers — only to search the business for tax violations, according to the lawsuit.
Brantley later pleaded guilty to federal charges of employing unauthorized immigrants, tax evasion and wire fraud.
“Today, justice was served to the Latinx workers, and their community, who took a stand against federal agents targeting them because of their ethnicity,” said Meredith Stewart, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Immigrant Justice Project.
“The unprecedented, court-approved settlement demonstrates that we, as a nation, will not tolerate racial profiling.” (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)