On his second day of events in Nashville, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke met with immigrants and refugees living in Tennessee on Monday for a roundtable discussion.

O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman, first held a rally at Marathon Music Works on Sunday, drawing hundreds of supporters to the campaign event where he largely focused on immigration and decried President Donald Trump's policies on detaining migrants at the southern border.

The Monday roundtable was organized by TIRRC Votes, the political action committee of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. O'Rourke's campaignreached out to the organization about holding the meeting, which took place at The Horn Coffee, a shop owned by a family who came to Nashville in 1996 as refugees from Somalia.

"Here we are in Nashville," O'Rourke said as he responded to a question about how, as president, he would combat white supremacy and make the country more welcoming to all people.

"I know this from my home state, Texas, places that formed the Confederacy, that this country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and suppression, even in our democracy."

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O'Rourke addresses immigration, raids, detention centers

First to speak was Martha Pulido a resident of Morristown for more than 20 years who shared in Spanish about being detained during a massive work site raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year at a meat plant Bean Station.

Alberto Librado Chavez, who has lived in the United States 15 years, also shared in Spanish about his experience being detained for weeks after the raid, which resulted in the arrests of 97 factory workers.

O'Rourke, who is from El Paso, listened and responded to the pair in Spanish.

Through sharing their own stories and from comments made by Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of TIRRC, the group urged O'Rourke to end work site enforcement by ICE and the use of private immigration detention centers. The also asked to renew protections for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program Trump has sought to end.

Despite Teatro calling on O'Rourke to shift his position on a repealing a portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows for criminal prosecution for border crossing, he said that while he believed non-threatening immigrants should not face such prosecution, it should still be reserved for "exceptional cases," such as traffickers and smugglers.

O'Rourke: Raids used to break up families, instill fear

O'Rourke noted that while Trump had used ICE raids to create fear, similar raids unfolded under President Barack Obama.

"We also have to admit that Democratic presidents have used ICE raids mercilessly," O'Rourke said. "Whatever the motivation, it instilled fear and broke up families."

While touring Second Harvest Food Bank in Nashville earlier that day, O'Rourke said he also heard about how fear of ICE was preventing immigrants who are in the country illegally from seeking necessary resources.

"They were talking about how these ICE raids and the fear now in immigrant communities, including mixed status families, has prevented people from coming to a food bank," he said.

"They're wiling to deny themselves the food they need to subsist on for fear they will be arrested, detained and deported back to a country they haven't been to in 15, 20 years."

TIRRC representatives said they are interested in meeting with any presidential candidates who campaign in the Volunteer State.

"As candidates develop their platforms and vision for our nation's immigration systems, it is critical to understand the experience of immigrant families in America's new destination states," TIRRC Votes said in a statement. "In recent decades, immigrants and refugees are increasingly moving to communities outside of America's traditional gateway cities into communities like Tennessee."

Tennessee's immigrant population is one of the fastest growing in the country, the number of foreign-born individuals in Tennessee growing by 101% between 2000 and 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

There are currently roughly 332,000 immigrants living in Tennessee.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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