By Dianne Frazee-Walker
A 2008 traffic stop landed a Mexican immigrant woman a $490,000 settlement and a possible resident visa.
The financial settlement is the outcome of a 5-year legal battle over Ms. Villegas’s civil rights being violated while she was detained for 6-days in a Nashville jail.
Ms. Villegas’s nightmare began when authorities discovered she was in the country illegally when she was pulled over in a Nashville suburb. Authorities discovered Villegas had been residing in the United States since 1996 and had been previously deported. She was arrested and detained for 6-days. Villegas’s immediate custody was justified by an immigration agreement between Davidson County and federal authorities that gave immigration enforcement powers to sheriff’s officers.
The problem was Villegas was 9 months pregnant when she was hauled off to jail. A short time after she was taken into custody, Villegas gave birth to a baby boy. Nevertheless, officials didn’t waste any time returning Villegas to jail after the birth without her newborn infant in arm.
During Villegas’s delivery officials displayed no signs of compassion when they restrained
her to the bed with shackles.
Did the officials who bound Ms. Villegas to the bed believe she was actually going to make a mad dash for the door while going through labor, or is this just an outdated procedure?
As if this wasn’t enough inhumane treatment, Villegas was prohibited from bringing the breast pump the nurse gave her to the jail, and she developed a painful breast infection.
In 2011 Villegas’s ordeal was finally addressed by a federal judge. Tennessee federal judge William J. Haynes Jr. ruled that jail officials treated Villegas while incarcerated with “deliberate indifference” to her medical needs by shackling her ankle to her hospital bed through most of her labor and during recovery.
The city of Nashville contested the ruling, and the case became a 2-year battle.
Last year, federal immigration enforcement lost the 2-year battle to immigrant advocates and the Obama administration. Immigrant advocate groups relentlessly maintained their passionate aversion to the program that relinquished to the sheriff’s office the authority to detain immigration violators, known as 287(g). The national program has diminished because the federal government is refusing to endorse new contracts and renew existing ones.
Ms. Villegas’s victory won her a $100,000 settlement, judgment for a visa, and permission to work in the U.S. Her lawyers, including Sherrard & Row law firm, will be $390,000 richer. Ms. Villegas can comfortably support her four American citizen children and continue to live in Nashville. The judge said the visa was in order because of the violation of Ms. Villegas’s civil rights. The only issue excluded from the settlement is the breast pump negligence.
The renouncement of immigration program 287(g) and Ms. Villegas’s settlement has made Mr. Ozment, Villegas’s lawyer, a very busy man. He is receiving referrals from other states from pregnant immigrants who have been shackled or restrained during detention. Mr. Ozment asserts, “This is not a lone problem, this is a systemic problem.”
Karla R. West, a spokeswoman for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, now claims the jail has changed its procedures for pregnant women. Pregnant inmates are no longer shackled unless they are a threat of harm to themselves or others.
Ms. Villegas has expressed her gratitude for the publicity her case has attracted. If it wasn’t for the horrible ordeal she suffered through, changes would not have been made to prevent other women from going through the same experience.
Published Oct 21, 2013 by Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA | Last Updated by Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA on May 5, 2025 at 3:13 pm