Freezing cold and afraid to leave: Nashville immigrants hunker down in frigid homes 

Fernando Pa was bundled up in the hallway of his South Nashville apartment building on Jan. 31, 2026, to keep warm as volunteers checked on other residents of his complex.
The complex was in its seventh day without power. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

As tens of thousands in Nashville woke up Saturday to a seventh straight day without power after a deadly ice storm, one group of bundled-up volunteers fanned out to knock on doors.

The effort to deliver hot meals, blankets, diapers — and to relocate families willing to move, most with children — was organized by the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition. The advocacy group has dispatched volunteers all week to check on residents living in largely immigrant South Nashville communities now heading into a second week without power as the city experiences unusually frigid temperatures. 

As pairs of volunteers trudged down the cold hallway of one apartment complex, they encountered Fernando Pa sitting on the floor outside his apartment charging his phone in an outlet powered by energy from a shared generator. His own apartment still had no electricity.

Long power cords snaked from under the doors of three other apartments that lined the hallway out to the parking lot. Pa said some of his neighbors had their own generators powering up space heaters and hot plates inside. A strong smell of fuel lingered in the long and narrow passageway.

Twice a day, many of the more than 100 residents living in the complex of two-story buildings circling a frozen courtyard, gathered outside around a community bonfire to make coffee and heat food, said Pa, speaking in Spanish as a volunteer translated. He asked volunteers for hot meals for himself and two roommates.

The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition has delivered 5,000 hot meals and helped 143 people find shelter, 75 of them children, since the power first went out Jan. 25. The hotel rooms and Airbnbs are paid for with donations. It is one of many volunteer efforts that have popped up across Nashville to provide meals and shelter to those stranded without power. TIRRC’s efforts were focused Saturday on largely Hispanic and Somali immigrant apartment residents in South Nashville. The organization did similar outreach in Memphis last week, where the storm death toll had risen to to six by Sunday evening.

Cesar Bautista, campaign director for the nonprofit, said many people they have encountered are afraid to leave.

“They’re afraid if they leave their apartments, someone will break in or maybe they’re not aware of where the shelters are or afraid of what information they’re going to be asked at shelters, like their immigration status,” Bautista said. 

Publicly-run shelters do not ask for immigration status. But the massive ramp-up in immigration enforcement activity by the Trump administration has made that fear hard to shake. In May, during a highly publicized immigration dragnet in Nashville, ICE agents targeted the same apartment complex where volunteers encountered Pa in the hallway. 

Catherine Hernandez, 34, said it was this sustained attack on immigrants that prompted her to volunteer on Saturday. Hernandez never lost power and has been warm and safe throughout the blackout. But she said the fear people trapped in cold apartments feel about encountering ICE is one that has become deeply familiar to her. Her parents are immigrants, she said. 

“I’ve been realizing that the only thing that can help right now is going to be community,” said Hernandez, a Mexican-American who said she now carries her passport and American birth certificate with her at all times.  “It’s not going to be the law.”

“I’m trying to make more of an effort to do what I can to keep myself safe, but to also use whatever privileges that I do have to help others,” she said. She cried as she spoke.

At its peak, January’s storm left 300,000 households across Tennessee without power. Most of the outages were in Nashville, where a rising chorus of criticism has been directed at Nashville Electric Services by residents and public officials, including Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and local city council members.

Nearly 38,000 households remained without power as of Sunday. The public utility, which has come under fire for a lack of information about power during the duration of outages, began reporting estimates of power restoration dates late last week. 

The report warned that some households would not see power restored until Feb. 8, two weeks after the lights went out for many of its customers as temperatures continue to hover well below freezing. 

Statewide, the storm has claimed 23 lives, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency reported late Sunday.