Tennessee meat plant workers reach settlement over 2018 raid

(Reuters) — Latino workers at a Tennessee meat processing plant have reached a $1.2 million settlement in a lawsuit over a 2018 immigration raid in which they were “targeted by federal agents” because of their ethnicity, an immigration advocacy group said Monday.

About 100 workers who were detained during the raid will receive a total of $550,000, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) said.

The federal government will also pay $475,000 to six individual plaintiffs to resolve claims including excessive force and unlawful arrest under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The settlement includes $150,000 in attorneys fees and expenses.

In February 2019, the NILC and several nonprofit groups filed a lawsuit alleging that armed U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Internal Revenue Service officers “illegally targeted” Latino workers in the raid, used excessive force and made false arrests.

The DHS and IRS did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment.

The agreement was approved late Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.