After a multi-hour standoff between a man and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, neighbors formed a human chain to prevent him and his 12-year-old son from being detained.

The standoff began early Monday morning in Hermitage, Tennessee after the man and his son, who were in a van parked in their driveway, were blocked in by an ICE vehicle. The two refused to emerge and alerted neighbors and immigration activists who began bringing food, water, and gas to the van.

Nashville police were called by ICE, but didn’t assist with the apprehension. Rather, they stood by to “keep the peace if necessary.”

After multiple hours, the group of those assisting the man formed a human chain around him and his son to shuffle them from the vehicle and into their house, and then once more to move them from their house to a car in order to drive away.





“I was real scared about what was going on,” neighbor Felishadae Young said. “It put a lot of fear in me, because it could be me. It could be my family. It could be anybody. It could be your neighbors, just like it was my neighbor today.”

ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said that ICE officers decided to leave the scene without making an arrest in an attempt to “de-escalate the situation.”