During a Tuesday press conference discussing his administration’s response to the Memphis Safe Task Force deployment, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris offered a platform to a member of Vecindarios 901, an immigration group affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Black Lives Matter (BLM).
A press advisory published by the Shelby County Mayor’s Office confirmed that Vecindarios 901 organizer Carlos Ochoa participated in the event alongside Harris and Community Legal Center Immigrant Justice Program Director Colton Bane.
Ochoa, after being introduced by Harris (pictured above), described the deportation of illegal immigrants who do not have criminal convictions as a “moral crisis,” and blamed the federal government for failing to create, “a just and realistic pathway for citizenship for millions,” who he claimed “have ancestral ties to this land.”
He told the press, “This moral and political failure of leadership at the federal level created the vulnerability that the task force now exploits.”
Describing the task force as a “federal occupation” engaged in “terror” against illegal immigrants living in Memphis, Ochoa (picture here) claimed the task force violates citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights through use of administrative warrants, and appealed to the historicity of the moment.
“History is listening, and one day people will ask, ‘What did we do when liberty was threatened? When neighbors were taken? When the Constitution was tested?’ And let them say that Memphis gave the world something more than music,” said the activist. “And we stood shoulder-to-shoulder and said, ‘Not here. Not in our city.’”
Ochoa’s presence at the Shelby County mayor’s press conference comes after another member of Vecindarios 901, Hunter Demster, claimed to local media that residents of Memphis were being “snatched up” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a result of the task force.
Demster was previously arrested during a 2020 protest of former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who visited that year amid national civil unrest in response to the death of George Floyd.
A person representing Vecindarios 901 also spoke at a DSA general meeting in 2019, and participated in a “socially distanced action” with BLM shortly after Floyd’s death in 2020.
During his press conference, Harris also revealed that the federal task force had so far made 854 arrests, slightly more than the 850 reported by Governor Bill Lee around the same time.
Harris has since declared a state of emergency in Shelby County in response to the task force’s deployment.
In his own remarks on Tuesday, the governor said that the task force would likely remain deployed in Memphis “forever,” but clarified that while the total number of federal law enforcement deployed to the city may change, the new level of cooperation between local, state, and federal authorities will remain in place indefinitely.
While Harris has emerged as one of the most vocal local critics of the deployment, Memphis Mayor Paul Young has repeatedly argued that Memphians should view the task force as an opportunity to build on the city’s existing efforts to improve public safety.
Contradicting Harris, the Memphis mayor said during the governor’s press conference that those being arrested had an outsized impact on the city’s crime rate.
“We want this effort to help us get those individuals off the streets, because we know that those are the significant drivers of violent crime in our city,” said Young, after noting that, prior to the federal deployment, there were “about 10,000 felony warrants” outstanding in Memphis.
Watch Harris’ full press conference:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris” and “Carolos Ochoa” by ABC24 Memphis.
This guy only wants money and no help to make Memphis safe. He despises anything done by Republicans because he is a die hard liberal who’ has no respect for law and order.
Why are people like this elected?
Do the people of Memphis REALLY support this Mayor and his communist buddies??? If so then I say let them have at it. If poverty and crime is how they want to live then leave them to their wishes. You can bet the Mayor will never experience what he is allowing to happen to the people of Memphis.