A undocumented, pregnant Mexican woman was detained after a traffic stop in a Nashville suburb. She had been pulled over for “reckless driving,” and rather than issue a ticket upon discovering she did not have a license, the officer arrested her. Within the next 6 days, she would be forced to give birth while her foot was cuffed to the bed as a sheriff stood guard, be refused the right to see her newborn son during the two days she had to stay at the hospital, be refused the right to see or speak to her husband, and then was not allowed to take a breast pump back to jail with her. The result? Her son quickly developed jaundice, and her breasts quickly became swollen with milk and infected.
Mrs. {Juana) Villegas’s arrest has focused new attention on a cooperation agreement signed in April 2007 between federal immigration authorities and Davidson County, which shares a consolidated government with Nashville, that gave immigration enforcement powers to county officers. It is one of 57 agreements, known formally as 287G, that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has signed in the last two years with county and local police departments across the country under a rapidly expanding program. [...]
