NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than 100 people have been taken into custody by federal immigration officials in a joint operation with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, leaving many in Nashville’s immigrant community uncertain and worried.
“None of us have ever seen anything like this,” Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said Friday.
The operation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a reminder of how local and state law enforcement jurisdictions are critical to President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations. Last week, Florida officials touted a joint operation with ICE that resulted in 1,120 immigration arrests.
Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee recently signed a law creating a division of immigration enforcement with the state’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which includes the Highway Patrol. He is one of a number of Republican officials pledging to use state resources to carry out Trump’s plans.
Meanwhile, city officials in the Democratic stronghold of Nashville have disavowed involvement and been critical of the arrests. Nashville Law Director Wally Dietz said the state-federal operation, which began May 3, caught everyone in city government by surprise.
Responding to concerns about Nashville police presence outside an ICE office, Dietz said Wednesday that the city “routinely receives requests for extra patrols for a variety of reasons and responds to the extent resources are available.” He said he didn’t know who was detained and that, when he requested more information from the Highway Patrol, he was told to file a public records request.
The Highway Patrol said Friday that it made 588 stops in the joint operation with ICE, which took custody of 103 under investigation for immigration violations.
The stops “led to the recovery of illegal drugs and firearms — taking dangerous elements off the street and making Tennessee safer,” the Highway Patrol said. One person was wanted in a killing in El Salvador.
The Highway Patrol said stops are based solely on driver behavior. “We do not enter neighborhoods or stop vehicles based on who someone is — we stop based on what they do behind the wheel,” it said.
But immigrant rights supporters contend that the patrols have focused on parts of the city where the majority of residents are people of color.
“All signs point to this being racial profiling intended to terrorize the heart of the immigrant and refugee community,” Sherman Luna said. “What we’ve heard is that THP is flagging people down for things like a broken taillight or tinted windows.”
Sherman Luna believes some of those being detained would be allowed to stay in the country if they were able to receive competent legal representation at an immigration hearing. Instead, she has heard that people are agreeing to be deported out of fear that they could spend months or years in immigration detention.
About 9% of the Nashville metropolitan area population of about 2 million are immigrants, with many from Mexico and Honduras, according to the Migration Policy Institute’s analysis of census data. The city also has a large Kurdish population living alongside refugees from Sudan, Myanmar and other countries.
“It’s a strategy to strike fear into our vibrant, diverse, beautiful neighborhoods,” Sherman Luna said.