Months after giant immigration raid, the wounds are still raw in one Tennessee town.

Luis Bautista-Martinez back home in Morristown, Tenn.
(Photo: Bryan Tarnowski for Yahoo News)

MORRISTOWN, Tenn. — Luis Bautista-Martinez was on his way home from church with his sister and her two children when the sound of a police siren brought back frightening memories of an officer pointing a gun at his head months earlier.

The 23-year-old had, at that point, been back in Tennessee for less than three days after his release from an immigration detention facility in rural Louisiana, where he was taken after being arrested in one of the biggest worksite immigration raids in the last 10 years. The siren wasn’t actually meant for him, but for a moment he was filled with anxiety, wondering if his brief freedom was about to end. He thought, are they coming back for me? Is it happening again?

Arriving at the mobile home where he lives with his sister, Esmeralda, her husband and their three young children, Bautista-Martinez went straight to his room and fell asleep. He told his sister he had a headache, a complaint he’d been making a lot since returning from the detention center, where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.



By Caitlin Dickson.
Full story at Yahoo News.