U.S. border czar: Nashville mayor, a critic of immigration sweeps, now faces investigation

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell with, at far left, Metro Nashville Legal Director Wally Dietz and near left, Hal Cato, CEO of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee at a May 5 press conference addressing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

U.S. “border czar” Tom Homan said Tuesday on Fox News that Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is under investigation by a Congressional committee over his condemnation of immigration sweeps that led to the detention of nearly 200 people earlier this month.

As a result of O’Connell’s public stance, Homan warned that Nashville could soon see an even larger federal multi-agency immigration crackdowns: “We’ll flood the zone,” Homan said repeatedly.

“We’ll flood the zone in the neighborhoods to find the bad guy. We’ll flood the zone at work sites to find the bad guy, but we’re going to do it, and he’s (O’Connell) not going to stop us,” said Homan, the White House executive director of enforcement and removal operations.

A spokesperson for the Congressional House Homeland Security Committee referenced by Homan did not respond to questions about a potential investigation. The committee is chaired by Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green.

Homan’s remarks came days after Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles held a press conference to denounce O’Connell, a Democrat, for “aiding and abetting illegal immigration.” Ogles, without offering evidence, accused the Nashville mayor of obstructing the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. An Ogles spokesman did not respond to questions about his assertions this week.

Ogles instead used his Memorial Day press conference to reference O’Connell’s public remarks condemning a joint effort by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE agents during the first two weeks of May, when state troopers making traffic stops led to the ICE detention of 196 individuals in one of Nashville’s most heavily immigrant neighborhoods. The majority of those detained had no criminal records.

Tensions run high among officials, community organizations after ICE enforcement in Nashville

“What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm,” O’Connell publicly said of the early May detentions.

Ogles also cited an executive order signed by O’Connell that requires city emergency officials to report, within 24 hours, any interaction with federal immigration enforcement officials to the Mayor’s Office of New Americans.

Homan appeared on The Ingraham Angle Fox News program with host Laura Ingraham Tuesday.  “We’ll see,” he said in response to a question from Ingraham about whether he would seek criminal prosecution of O’Connell.

“I know Homeland Oversight is opening up a congressional investigation,” Homan said.

“I cannot confirm or deny if ICE is investigating (O’Connell), but we’ll see where it plays out. It isn’t just what he says, it’s what he does…I said that from day one that we’re going to hit every sanctuary city. Everybody that wants to push back against ICE, we’re going to pay a lot of attention to them.”

Nashville is not a so-called sanctuary city, a designation adopted by some U.S. cities to limit cooperation with ICE relating to immigrants accused of non-violent crimes. State law bars all Tennessee cities from adopting sanctuary status.

In his television appearance, Homan also took aim at O’Connell’s support for the so-called “Belonging Fund” established by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, a 30-year-old mainstay of the local charitable sector.

The Community Foundation announced in early May the creation of an emergency assistance fund for transportation, rent, food, and child care for immigrant families impacted by ICE sweeps.

The fund, as of Wednesday, has raised $286,343 in private donations and does not receive public funding, according to a foundation spokesperson.

“As far as the belonging fund that (O’Connell is) supporting, I have my own belonging fund,” Homan said Tuesday. “We can give housing, food and free medical care in ICE detention and that’s exactly what we’re going to do in Nashville.”

Ogles took to the social media platform X Wednesday in a series of posts to amplify his criticism of the Belonging Fund, inaccurately labeling it as the “mayor’s fund.”

“Mayor O’Connell’s so-called “Belonging Fund” — which may be using taxpayer dollars to help illegal aliens evade ICE — has no system to track who the money is going to?,” he wrote. “This is exactly how Americans end up funding terrorists and gangs. Shut down the fund. Investigate O’Connell.”

Community Foundation officials, in announcing the fund, pledged they would keep confidential the names of individual recipients of aid.

Recipients of The Belonging Fund donations thus far have included a pregnant woman unable to work due to health conditions, who used the funding to buy medication, food and pay part of her rent after Nashville immigration sweeps caught up the family’s breadwinner, the foundation spokesperson said.

Another recipient spent the $1,600 she received from the fund on food and rent after family members were taken into custody, the spokesperson said.

Immigrant advocates have highlighted the terror and trauma experienced by immigrants caught up in sweeps that took place near busy thoroughfares in South Nashville, an immigrant community hub. Children at the scene were seen tears as mass arrests were made.

https://twitter.com/RepOgles/status/1927734223944765621?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” target=”_blank

“It appears anti-immigrant politicians and pundits are still clamoring to spin this traumatizing event — which left children at home without caregivers, pregnant mothers without income to support their families, and community members too fearful to leave their homes for groceries,” said an emailed statement from Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Commission, which has helped connect funding to families impacted by the immigration sweeps.

Sherman Luna called the measure an effort to “further their political agenda, drive division in our city, and demonize immigrant communities and those who support us.”

In a separate post, Ogles on Wednesday claimed he had met with ICE officials who told him, “there’s an illegal alien gang operating in every Tennessee city. No one is safe. This isn’t rhetoric — it’s the reality of blue mayors obstructing law enforcement.”

Ogles did not provide support for those claims on social media. The majority of cities in Tennessee, which is largely rural and Republican, appear to be led by mayors who are either nonpartisan or Republican.