This story was originally published by the Nashville Banner. Sign up for their newsletter at nashvillebanner.com/newsletters.
It has been a month since federal immigration agents, with the help of Tennessee state troopers, took nearly 200 allegedly undocumented immigrants off Nashville’s streets and quickly bussed them out of state. But despite demands from Nashville officials and community advocates, neither Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor the Tennessee Highway Patrol will confirm the names of the people they took or the detention facilities where those people are being detained.
With official channels leading to dead ends, advocacy organizations like the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and The ReMIX Tennessee, working with families and community members, led the efforts to identify the disappeared. A coalition spokesperson told the Nashville Banner that they’ve identified 90 to 100 people detained during the operation.
In a release marking the close of the weeklong operation last month, ICE announced that 196 people had been taken into custody for deportation. But despite describing the operation as “focused on identifying and apprehending removable aliens who pose a threat to public safety” — and highlighting a handful of people with serious criminal histories — the agency also said that less than half of those who had been arrested had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell called for complete transparency.