Tennessee immigration enforcement division distributes nearly $900,000 in law enforcement grants

Since it was established last year, the Tennessee Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division has operated largely outside of public view. 

The office is responsible for overseeing state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement officials, and distributing grants to police departments and sheriffs that join the federal effort. It was established by Republican lawmakers during the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term to mirror, at the state level, the mass deportation policies of the new federal administration.

Led by Chief Immigration Enforcement Officer Ryan Hubbard, a former border patrol agent and retired special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, the office operates under the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security, which has not responded to questions about the ongoing work of the division. 

A report written in January by the division, obtained by the Tennessee Lookout through a public records request, provides a narrow window into its activities thus far. 

Between August and December, the division committed $866,843 in grant funding to seven sheriff’s offices and one municipal police department “for law enforcement equipment and operational expenses associated with immigration enforcement,” the report said. The report does not name the agencies receiving the grants.

The grants are part of $5 million in state funding set aside for local law enforcement agencies that agree to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on so-called 287(g) cooperative agreements giving Tennessee officers and sheriff’s deputies expanded powers to conduct immigration enforcement. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Safety & Homeland Security did not respond to a request for the names of agencies receiving the funds, whether more agencies have been allocated funding since the report was written or the total amount committed to each agency. 

Hubbard, the division’s chief, has travelled to 68 counties to encourage more local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE and to apply for the grant, the report noted. 

Scores of local law enforcement agencies have signed agreements with ICE thus far, the report noted. According to the most recently posted federal data, more than 60 sheriffs’ departments, constable agencies and police departments have thus far entered into the federal agreements.

The work has not been without challenges, the report noted.

Hubbard has “spent a considerable amount of time countering false claims about the ICE 287(g) program from opponents of immigration enforcement,” the report said. “Ultimately, these challenges have not significantly impacted the mission of the CIED.”

The Department of Safety & Homeland Security spokesperson did not respond to a request for additional details about the ways in which Hubbard has had to counter false claims.

When lawmakers voted to the creation of the division, they also approved making some of its records confidential. 

The confidentiality provision applies largely to sensitive information received from federal, local or state law enforcement agencies, including sensitive information provided by local law enforcement agencies receiving state grants.

But the language of the public record exceptions doesn’t specifically include the names of agencies receiving grants or the amount of taxpayer funding they have gotten.

“You want to see where this money is going,” said Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. 

“Information including the identity of the grant recipient, in my view, is fairly open and the department should be transparent in how much they are giving to local law enforcement,” she said.
Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division report – January