Volunteers bring aid to fearful migrant families
Nashville, Tennessee — At the age of 80, Lynne McFarland of Nashville, Tennessee, isn't taking it easy.
She's technically retired, but spends three days a week, several hours per day, packing and delivering boxes filled with food and other basic needs to families of undocumented immigrants living in Nashville. Some are too scared to leave their homes.
She estimates that she delivers about 25 boxes each week. She is one of a few dozen such volunteers in the city.
"I can't really appreciate how afraid they are because I don't think I've ever been that afraid," McFarland told CBS News.
She said "most" of the families that she delivers food to have had a family member who was detained or deported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made about 1,000 daily arrests of undocumented immigrants in June, according to ICE's online database. Still, that's just one-third of the Trump administration's daily goal of 3,000 arrests.
"Our law enforcement officers here in Tennessee are committed to finding you, apprehending you, and getting you out of our community and out of our country," Republican state Sen. Jack Johnson told CBS News. "... If you're in the country illegally, then I think you should be concerned."
Internal government data obtained by CBS News shows ICE is holding about 59,000 detainees, 47% of whom have no criminal record.
It's why one Venezuelan man living in Tennessee told CBS News he's terrified.
"I've never had an issue with the law, never," the man said, going on to say that he has "never even gotten a traffic ticket."
He asked CBS News to blur his face and those of his family members. He was detained by Homeland Security agents in May when he showed up for an immigration hearing in person. He spent about one month inside an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.
He said he was eventually released by ICE, but his fate in the U.S. is still unclear despite earning Temporary Protected Status when he crossed the border in 2021, and later, a work permit. He also has a one-year-old child who was born in the U.S. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that it would allow the Trump administration to halt the TPS program for Venezuelans.
"I think there's fear on all sides," McFarland said. "I think there's fear that we don't know who's next, and we know that there will be a next."
Nicole Valdes is a correspondent based in Nashville. Valdes was most recently a weather correspondent with FOX Weather. Since joining FOX Weather in 2021, Valdes covered breaking and developing weather-related news for the streaming service. Valdes reported from nearly 40 states, leading network coverage of Hurricane Ian's impact on Florida, as well as countless tornadoes, flood, and wildfires. As a proud bilingual journalist, Valdes put her skills forward to produce and report an in-depth piece on Hurricane Maria's impact to Puerto Rico. Prior to this role, Valdes worked as a reporter and fill-in anchor in Phoenix, Arizona, where she led the station's coverage of the 2020 Presidential election. She was also a multimedia journalist for the CBS-affiliate in Fort Myers, Florida. Valdes graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville.
