THP rejects ICE overtures after joint immigration enforcement operation last year

The Tennessee Highway Patrol has limited its participation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since May, when a controversial joint operation in Nashville resulted in scores of immigrant detentions, agency leaders told lawmakers late last month.

“We’ve done one and only operation, and it was last May,” said Col. Matt Perry, who leads the Tennessee Highway Patrol, or THP. “After that operation they’ve reached out periodically for us to take part in certain things, and we haven’t.”

Perry’s remarks, made in the context of responding to questions about misconduct during the joint Nashville operation with ICE – detailed in a recent investigation by the Nashville Banner – were the first public acknowledgement that the THP has rejected operations requests from ICE. 

In the week since Perry spoke to lawmakers, THP has declined to detail the number of ICE operations requests it has received or explain the reasons why THP has not chosen to particpate. 

“I’m not sure there is much more that we can say other than what was on the record yesterday,” Jason Pack, a THP spokesperson emailed Feb. 27. “I’ll do some checking.” Pack has not responded to follow-up questions since. 

THP’s efforts to limit direct participation with ICE is the most recent example of Tennessee’s Republican leadership, who have publicly embraced the Trump Administration’s national immigration detention and deportation agenda, taking a more restrained approach when it plays out closer to home.

Tennessee Republicans derail ICE detention center in Lebanon

On Feb. 13, the Lookout reported that ICE had purchased property to use as a mass immigrant detention facility in Lebanon, a largely suburban community 30 miles east of Nashville, based on emailed statements from the agency.

In the days that followed the Lookout’s report, a dizzying series of contradictory public statements from ICE first reaffirmed the Lebanon detention center plans then reversed them. On Feb. 17, ICE issued a statement saying their previous announcement of the purchase had been made in error, without agency approval. 

One day later, Wilson County Mayor Randall Hutto released his own public statement saying the detention center plans were, in fact, back on: U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials had confirmed they planned a Lebanon “mega” detention center to hold up to 16,000 immigrants, the statement said.

Wilson County Mayor: ICE eyes immigrant detention ‘mega center’ in Lebanon to house up to 16,000

The all-Republican leadership in Wilson County, including Hutto, Wilson County Sheriff Robert Bryan, Lebanon Mayor Rick Bell, district representatives Sen. Mark Pody and Rep. Clark Boyd and 24 of 25 members of the Wilson County Commission publicly opposed the center, while expressing support for the mission of ICE.

Behind the scenes, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, an otherwise vocal and loyal supporter of the Trump administration’s mass deportation tactics, worked to derail the project. 

Blackburn announced Feb. 24 that the Lebanon detention plan “will not move forward.”

“Thank you to Sen. Marsha Blackburn for her diligent work with us to support the City of Lebanon,” said Bell, the Lebanon mayor, in a statement echoed by other Republican officials. “As a conservative Republican, I continue to support the mission of securing our border.”

Gov. Bill Lee declined to make public remarks about the prospect of an ICE facility in Lebanon until after Blackburn’s announcement the plans had been shelved. 

“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 our communities are safer and that illegal criminals that are in our country are found,” Lee then 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.”

Legislation crafted with help of Trump aide proceeds

In other respects, Tennessee Republicans have continued to embrace the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.

Republican lawmakers continue to move forward a slate of bills targeting immigrants unlawfully present in the United States as part of their “Immigration 2026” package.

The bills were born out of a series of meetings between Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and White House advisor Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.

Bills still winding their way through the legislative process would impose immigration verification requirements in public schools, public health clinics and other government services agencies.

And Tennessee law enforcement agencies have continued to enter into so-called 287(g) agreements with ICE to train local officers in conducting immigration enforcement activities and in agreeing to provide jail bed space for immigrant detainees. Thus far at least 66 Tennessee sheriffs, chiefs of police and constable districts have entered such agreements, according to a federal database. 

Tennessee House panels expedite immigration bills

The Tennessee Highway Patrol has also inked its own agreement with ICE to perform immigration enforcement activities independent of joint operations with the federal agency.

Thus far 50 troopers are in the process of being trained on immigration enforcement as part of the 287(g) agreement, Perry told lawmakers. 

THP is also among a dozen federal and state agencies that are operating in Shelby County as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force established in an executive order by President Donald Trump. 

Pack, the THP spokesperson, stressed the THP’s role in the task force was not to make immigration arrests. “They enforce state laws which are passed by the state legislature…troopers have no idea who is in the car prior to observing a traffic violation.”

For now, however, any future cooperation between the THP and ICE is on hold, Perry told lawmakers.

“That’s where we’re operating until we receive direction to do something different,” Perry said. Perry did not explain whom the agency is taking direction from. 

The May partnership between ICE and THP resulted in more than 600 traffic stops over seven days in immigrant communities in south Nashville. 

An investigation by the Nashville Banner, in collaboration with Mother Jones, News Channel Five, The Institute for Public Service Journalism – Memphis and Lighthouse Reports, found multiple instances of demeaning behavior during traffic stops, including the use of pejorative language and marking detainees with numbers as part of an apparent contest to track which officers had made the most arrests. 

Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Jeff Long told lawmakers his agency would investigate any misconduct by their own troopers, then seemingly connected the THP’s decision to no longer do joint operations with troopers’ experiences working with ICE during the Nashville operation.

THP officials stressed it was ICE agents, not troopers, who engaged in misconduct.

“We don’t have control over other agencies but we limited the account of participation (with ICE) after that,” Long said.