Stockard on the Stump: Tennessee officials don’t take immigration roundup report seriously

Tennessee leaders are ignoring a news report detailing the actions of state troopers and ICE agents who used slurs and competed to arrest immigrants, even marking on their arms, during a May 2025 dragnet in south Nashville.

Safety Commissioner Jeff Long said this week he was unaware of the report by the Nashville Banner, which was based on footage from troopers’ body cameras obtained through a public records request. 

Long told the Lookout this week he knew about the lawsuit by immigrant and refugee advocates over public records stemming from a partnership between Tennessee Highway Patrol officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who conducted the roundup.

“I don’t know about that other,” he said when asked about teams of troopers and ICE personnel “hunting” for suspects and marking them to show who made the most arrests during the week-long operation. The news report also found that officers profiled immigrants in traffic stops, referred to them as “wets,” a derogatory term, and inflated arrest numbers.  

The article notes that state troopers were typically more concerned with what they said to people they stopped in a section of Nashville heavily populated by immigrants. 

Yet the THP ordered them to participate in the enforcement action in which ICE agents reportedly used a black Sharpie to put what they called the “mark of the beast” on detainees to keep track of which team made the arrest. The law enforcement agency graduated 18 new officers on Thursday.

After the ceremony, Gov. Bill Lee said he didn’t know the details of the Banner report. “We’re very proud of the work THP has done. … We have a serious need to find criminals that are on our streets, illegal immigrants and legals, who are committing crimes. Public safety’s of utmost importance.”

Lee pointed out that ICE ran the operation but said the state is “partners” with the agency. 

The Banner report determined that the 600 stops made during the operation turned up only three serious criminals. But Lee felt it was worthwhile.

“I suspect that the families that have been the victims of those three serious criminals are really grateful for the work that the Highway Patrol’s doing, and I am too,” he said.

Tennessee Highway Patrol Col. Matt Perry was a bit more forthcoming this week when he testified before lawmakers. But not much.

He denied there was any competition between officers to arrest the most people, saying ICE can’t make traffic stops, only troopers. In addition, Perry said nine troopers made “probable cause” stops for traffic violations during the operation but he didn’t know anything about an arrest competition or the marking of skin. He also said the department receives complaints regularly about troopers statewide using “poor language,” which are investigated and followed up with discipline, if necessary.

As for troopers making crude remarks or their cameras picking up ICE agents’ comments, “we will handle that and address that. We expect higher of our people,” he said.

While the governor and the Highway Patrol’s top brass downplayed the report, Democrats blasted them.

“Gov. Lee should be absolutely ashamed he’s facilitating this type of conduct in our communities. So this is just as much on him as anybody,” said Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons of Nashville.

Clemmons contends White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is driving the president’s immigration agenda, which was purportedly to remove “the worst of the worst” but is rounding up all undocumented immigrants.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro, who has been representing the Nolensville Pike corridor for a decade, said the news analysis, which involved looking at 50 hours of footage, “should be sickening to every Tennessean, to every American.”

The report has less to do with immigration, Yarbro said, than it does with whether people think their government should be truthful, law enforcement should act with professionalism and “whether human beings should be treated like human beings.”

He called the references to “hunting” people and tagging them with Sharpies to keep score of arrests “vile” and “disturbing.”

“And the fact that the Tennessee Highway Patrol participated in that is an embarrassment and shame on the state, on the Highway Patrol and on all of us,” Yarbro said.

The possibility that Commissioner Long and Gov. Lee weren’t briefed on the report is troubling, as well. In this techno-age, government flacks usually receive alerts when the people and departments they work for are mentioned online.

Even if they can’t say much because of the pending public records litigation, stuff like this should be nipped in the bud. Tennessee’s state troopers are too valuable to be turned into ICE agents, who appear to be able to do whatever they want with no consequences.

ICE love affair on the rocks

Lee told reporters Thursday he knows of no other plans for ICE detention centers to be built in Tennessee after the agency pulled back on a proposal for a massive facility in Lebanon (not Pennsylvania).

That shouldn’t be much of a relief to Tennesseans because state officials acted as if they knew nothing about a 16,000-person prison to be built off Highway 109 in Wilson County. State Sen. Mark Pody went as far as to say “misinformation” was being put out about such a project because he couldn’t find any local or state officials who knew about a property sale. 

The Lookout initially published a report about ICE buying property in Lebanon for a large detention center where undocumented immigrants would be held as part of the Trump administration’s enforcement policy. ICE reneged on confirming the information, but then the Wilson County and Lebanon mayors said they found out it was to happen.

The following uproar by Republican leaders who said it just wouldn’t work in Lebanon was a bit odd considering their support for all things ICE.

Lee stayed away from criticizing the federal agency’s missteps.

“I think that it’s very important that the right steps and the right strategies and the right plans be taken to make sure that we do what is incredibly important work that the American people want done, which is to make certain that our communities are safer and that illegal criminals that are in our country are found,” Lee said. “There’s a lot of steps to that, and it was determined by the Department of Homeland Security that this step was not the right one, so I agree with them.”

As ICE identifies other locales, since Lebanon doesn’t have the utilities to support a 16,000-person prison, we’ll be interested to see which Tennessee county is just dying to put thousands of undocumented folks – and probably some who are documented – in cages. After all, it’s more than just immigration enforcement. It’s an economic development tool, the kind every mayor wants – well nearly every mayor.

This ain’t over

Sen. John Stevens told the Lookout this week he intends to resurrect a bill that would force anyone who sues the state to prove they’ve suffered serious damage in order to keep the case going.

The Huntingdon Republican said he plans to bring back Senate Bill 1958 after it failed to advance out of the Judiciary Committee last week after it fell short of the necessary five votes. If he pushes it, the panel’s rules require it to be scheduled last on the final calendar of the year.

“You can always sue,” Stevens said. “The question is: Can you win?”

Stevens, who also passed a bill this week giving the state automatic right to challenge a trial court’s decisions on rulings such as injunctions and motions to dismiss a case, acknowledged the committee vote was a “setback” but said he is working on amendments to make it more palatable.

He contends the measure returns the process to pre-2018 when plaintiffs challenging the state had to show injury rather than simply opposing the legislature’s action.

The Tennessee Firearms Association urged Senate Judiciary members last week to vote against the bill, asking them to “Stop the tyranny” in an email.

Additionally, Beacon Impact, Americans for Prosperity, the Goldwater Institute, the Institute for Justice and Pacific Legal Foundation sent a letter to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti opposing the bill that would repeal the state’s Private Cause of Action statute.

Such a move would “undermine Tennesseans’ ability to safeguard their constitutional and legal rights and to hold the government accountable when it acts unlawfully or unconstitutionally,” the letter says.

Before it took effect, Tennesseans seeking an injunction against state action had to wade through an expensive bureaucracy and “procedural hurdles” before reaching a courtroom, the letter says.

Asked about that opposition, Stevens said, based on the emails he’s received, “people don’t know what the bill is doing.” 

Ouch, that sounds like it could elicit some sort of response in a committee hearing from Beacon attorneys.

“Waiting is the hardest part”

House Education Committee Chairman Mark White says he will wait until mid-March to finish pushing passage of a bill designed to give the state authority over Memphis Shelby County Schools.

The East Memphis Republican told the Lookout this week he’s waiting for the first seven months of the state’s forensic audit of the school district to show why the state should appoint a new board to oversee the Memphis school board. The audit’s cost is edging toward $7 million.

The Senate and House passed different bills last year setting up the oversight board, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the tougher House version will be passed in what he calls a “takeover.”

White said lawmakers received a preliminary report on the audit three weeks ago showing a new direction is needed.

“No fault on any school board or any superintendent. It’s decades of bureaucracy and where the system management of funding and contracts has not been managed appropriately, so it’s going to need some outside intervention,” White said.

Democrats who oppose the “takeover” are quick to point out the state’s Achievement School District, which was designed mainly to point Memphis schools in a new direction, did very little over a decade except spend roughly a billion dollars.

Smaller government?

Besides creating a publicly-funded private school district, preparing to take over Memphis schools and setting up the East Bank Authority in Nashville, Republican lawmakers are ready to form an 11-member board and spend $5 million to oversee the Boring Company’s proposed 13-mile tunnel from downtown Nashville to the Metro airport. 

TN Senate Majority Leader proposes 20-person, $5M oversight agency for Boring Company Tunnel

The newest authority would have statewide control over all underground utilities or “subterranean transportation infrastructure.” That’s a necessity, because, otherwise, the state could be sued again for violating the Home Rule Amendment that requires it to get local approval for actions that affect only one or two cities or counties.

Boring, which is owned by Elon Musk, said it could complete the tunnel in two years and start ferrying riders back and forth in Teslas, also owned by Musk.

Yet they started digging into Las Vegas’ sandstone more than six years ago and still have only about 2.1 miles of tunnel. Questions abound.

But the biggest one is whether they’ll be filtering country music into the tunnel – if it ever comes to fruition – or maybe something like this. 

“Keep a clean nose, watch the plainclothes / You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” *

*Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”