Braving the August morning sun, nearly two dozen immigrant-rights activists lined up along Winchester Road. As a white bus with tinted windows sputtered by carrying immigrant detainees to Wilson Air Center, demonstrators waved signs written in Spanish with supportive messages like “AMIGOS No Estan Solos”, which translates to “Friends, you are not alone.”
The protest on Tuesday followed a months-long investigation by a volunteer group calling themselves “The Bird-Watchers” that has been tracking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flights leaving Wilson Air Center, a private air terminal near Memphis International Airport.
Joni Laney, one of the group leaders, said the demonstration was organized with several goals in mind.
“We want the people in the bus to know we stand with them as they go by,” Laney said, “letting them know we see them, we witness their suffering and we ask for justice.”
The protesters also hoped to draw attention to the harsh conditions under which the immigrants are transported — in handcuffs and shackles.
Laney, a retired schoolteacher, said that on any given week, ICE brings three buses carrying detainees to Wilson Air Center, founded in 1996 by Robert “Bob” Wilson, son of the late Holiday Inn hotels founder, Kemmons Wilson.
“We’re here to say to the Memphis community, wake up. See what’s happening in our city under our watch with our tax dollars,” Laney said.
The Bird-Watchers have been tracking flights since last spring. The three random weekly departures each hold about 40 detainees, most arriving from a detention facility in Mason, Tennessee.
“So, we figure about 1,600 since we’ve started observing in April have been just transferred out of Tennessee,” Laney said.
Retired pastor Billy Vaughan said the Wilson family has a “wonderful reputation in Memphis.” He is hopeful they will have a change of heart.
“I hope that they can stand back and see that this partnership for profit is wrong,” Vaughan said. “They’re profiting; they end up, in this case, profiting off of human suffering. I’m just hopeful that somehow the message will get through to them because I know that they are people of conscience.”
The Institute for Public Service Reporting reached out to the management of Wilson Air but did not receive a reply.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, declined to comment about “ongoing or future” flight operations.
On Tuesday morning, Gisela Guerrero with the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope tearfully watched a plane leave the tarmac. As a Latina, she says it’s like seeing family members go.
“And we can’t forget, too, that the reason all of this is happening is (because) someone thinks we’re less than” human, Guerrero said.
The plane departed Wilson Air Center a little after 9:00 a.m., and by midday, the shackled passengers were unloaded at the airport in Alexandria, Louisiana.
