An unsteady truce between Nashville’s Democratic mayor and Tennessee’s Republican leaders simply collapsed after an ICE dragnet within the metropolis.
Stress started to construct in early Might, when ICE began making visitors stops in partnership with the state freeway patrol within the immigrant-heavy neighborhood of South Nashville, resulting in the arrests of almost 200 suspected undocumented immigrants.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell rapidly condemned the motion as damaging to the neighborhood. And a GOP firestorm resulted, with Republicans accusing O’Connell of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.
4 weeks later, a easy public coverage spat has changed into a significant battle between a number of the strongest leaders in Tennessee, breaking a fragile peace between the town and the GOP supermajority legislature – and exposing Nashville to the wrath of the Trump administration. The feud, which reveals no indicators of ending quickly, comes with actual potential penalties for Nashville and different blue cities in crimson states being focused over their immigration insurance policies.
“It’s unfortunate that he’s willing to support the law breakers instead of supporting us as the lawmakers,” state Rep. Rusty Grills, a Republican, mentioned of the mayor.
O’Connell, who has labored to calm long-running tensions with Republicans since his election in 2023, is the newest goal of GOP ire over perceived threats to President Donald Trump’s deportations, and the onslaught in opposition to the mayor additionally represents an extra escalation within the administration’s assault on native officers. In New Jersey, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in Might on a trespassing cost outdoors an ICE facility. That cost was later dropped, however U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver is going through assault expenses from the identical confrontation.
In Tennessee, Republicans within the state legislature advised POLITICO that O’Connell was placing officers in danger by updating a longstanding government order mandating that metropolis officers disclose interactions with ICE to the mayor’s workplace inside 24 hours. They’ve latched onto that as proof the mayor is impeding legislation enforcement operations.
O’Connell, talking at a press convention following the raids, mentioned the town doesn’t have the authority to implement immigration legal guidelines, and famous that Nashville’s crime charges are down. He has maintained that the town didn’t intrude with the ICE operation in early Might.
But GOP outrage has unfold from Tennessee to Washington. O’Connell is going through a federal investigation from Home Republicans introduced final week, and a name for an additional from the Division of Justice by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who all argue that O’Connell is impeding legislation enforcement’s skill to crack down on crime dedicated by unlawful immigrants.
U.S. border czar Tom Homan has warned that Nashville might see bigger immigration crackdowns because of O’Connell’s opposition.
“We’ll flood the zone in the neighborhoods to find the bad guy,” Homan mentioned on Fox Information final week. “We’ll flood the zone at work sites to find the bad guy, but we’re going to do it, and [O’Connell’s] not going to stop us.”
Republicans have additionally gone after O’Connell for highlighting a donations fund that helps people affected by the arrests, like kids whose mother and father have been detained. Republicans say the fund is an improper use of taxpayer {dollars}, though the fund was created by a nonprofit that claims it completely makes use of personal donations.
Tennessee Democrats and immigrant advocates say that Republicans are cheering ICE’s involvement due to a bad-faith view of immigrant communities and that the criticism of O’Connell is solely GOP rhetoric missing any foundation. In addition they say the sweep reveals how the Division of Homeland Safety is taking in people who pose no risk to the general public. DHS mentioned about half of the folks arrested have felony information, however solely recognized 4 of them – main Democrats to demand extra details about these detained.
“For the politicians who care about nothing but the national news, this is a symbolic story,” mentioned Democratic State Sen. Jeff Yarbro. “But for those of us who represent communities where we’ve seen lawless dragnet policing, there are real life consequences to our community and to our neighbors.”
The raid’s scale and scope was “unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” mentioned Lisa Sherman Luna, the chief director of the Tennessee Immigrants & Refugee Rights Coalition.
The Tennessee Freeway Patrol’s cooperation with ICE underscores the function states will play in finishing up the Trump administration’s immigration agenda – particularly as DHS struggles to hit its deportation objectives. GOP leaders desperate to impress the president have taken steps in latest months to deputize native legislation enforcement as immigration enforcers, like in Georgia, the place Gov. Brian Kemp lately signed a legislation requiring legislation enforcement to verify the immigration standing of detainees.
“They are building an infrastructure that we’ve never seen, especially for a non-border state, to really carry out the President’s agenda of mass deportations,” Luna mentioned of the ICE operation in Nashville. “The devastation for families and local communities is going to be deep and broad, because everyone is a target now, and so it’s really alarming to see our state government being used in this manner.”
Tennessee Republicans have framed the battle as a matter of legislation and order – arguing that the ICE raids have been a obligatory use of pressure to crack down on crime they blame on unlawful immigrants. Beneath the management of Gov. Invoice Lee, Tennessee has emerged as one of the crucial aggressive non-border states on immigration within the second Trump period.
Lee, to the shock of many Tennesseans, was the primary Republican governor to say in January earlier than Trump’s inauguration he was readying the Nationwide Guard ought to they be known as upon to assist in deportations. In January, a couple of days after attending a governors assembly at Mar-A-Lago, Lee tacked onto immigration laws as a part of a particular session on college vouchers. Lawmakers then handed a sweeping legislation increasing native legislation enforcement’s immigration purview and making it a felony for state officers to ascertain sanctuary cities.
Nashville isn’t a sanctuary metropolis. However Democrats there nonetheless view the legislation as a warning shot from the legislature, which has clashed with metropolis leaders over a spread of points — from management of the airport to illustration in Congress.
“We wanted to send a signal that Tennessee was ready to cooperate and welcomed ICE coming into our communities to get these violent people out,” mentioned state Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican. “So I’m very, very happy with it and excited, and I hope they do more.”
And plenty of wish to see ICE return. State Sen. Brent Taylor has requested Homan to ship ICE to Memphis to handle “the violent crime epidemic” that he says is “exacerbated by poor local leadership.”
Shelby County, the place Memphis is situated, was included on an inventory of sanctuary cities and counties printed by DHS final week that was quickly taken down. Leaders of Shelby County, Memphis and Nashville — which was additionally on the listing – disputed their designation as sanctuary cities, which have been outlawed by the Tennessee legislature.
State Sen. Jody Barrett described relations between Nashville and the GOP legislature as a “forced marriage,” sophisticated by the truth that Nashville serves because the state’s financial engine. Nashville’s inhabitants has exploded in recent times, and the town’s tourism business retains the state coffers stuffed.
“And because of that, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” he mentioned.
