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Tennessee’s legislature advanced two anti-immigrant bills on Tuesday during their first hearings on each. One would require local law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the other would require law enforcement agencies, local governments and institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons to track and report individuals based on immigration status.
The bills, both a part of the Republican-led legislature’s objective to crack down on immigration across the state, passed along party lines during a heated meeting of the House Departments and Agencies Subcommittee on Tuesday.
Tensions were already high among the crowd after the subcommittee cleared a symbolic, pro-Israel bill banning the use of the term “West Bank” to describe the contested Israeli-Palestinian geographical region, resulting in multiple crowd outbursts and a threat from Committee Subcommittee Chair Rep. Rick Edlrighde, R-Morristown, that he would remove members of the public if laughter, snapping and other audible interjections continued.
When Rep. Johnny Garrett, R-Goodlettsville, proposed his bill, which would force local police, sheriff and even campus law enforcement to participate in the federal 287(g) program — a typically optional program to help ICE in immigration enforcement or detention — he said the legislation was designed to keep Tennesseans safe.
“Illegal aliens have created over half the crimes that took place in 2025, so it’s paramount that we cooperate, both from the federal, state and local level, to make sure we ensure the safety of everybody in this state, especially those crimes that are committed by folks that aren’t supposed to be here,” Garrett said.
Garrett repeatedly claimed that “over half” of the total crime in Tennessee last year was committed by illegal immigrants. According to the Tennessee District Attorney General’s Conference annual immigrant crime report, which takes an incomplete look at statewide crimes committed by those who are suspected to be undocumented, those without status were responsible for more than 11,000 crimes in 2025, 2,183 of which were reportedly violent offenses.
While the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations hasn’t released a report for 2025, the most recent annual report from 2023 found more than 509,000 reported crimes in Tennessee in one year. If 2025 had a similar number of crimes, that would be more like 2% committed by suspected immigrants, nowhere near the 50% claimed by Garrett.
Last year, the state legislature passed a bill that required and financially incentivized local law enforcement agencies to participate in the 287(g) program, despite lingering distaste for the program after its controversial implementation in Davidson County ended over a decade ago. When that bill passed, only two agencies in the state had 287(g) agreements. Now, according to ICE’s website, more than 60 have signed agreements.
Despite the efficacy of the incentive program, Garrett’s bill would force localities to participate and impose financial penalties on those that did not.
Rep. Larry Miller, D-Memphis, challenged Garrett, arguing that the bill would “punish United States citizens in Tennessee based on what their elected officials may not do.”
“This bill is not necessary if you’re talking about punishing our citizens, my constituency,” Miller said, adding that the bill was “BS” and “not morally correct.”
Garrett sniped back at Miller, noting that the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, which includes Memphis, had joined the program in 2025.
“It’s an overwhelming amount of support from the state of Tennessee that wants communities to be safe,” Garrett said. “They don’t want their cities, their elected officials, to defy state law, to defy local law, to defy federal law.”
The bill also seems to target cities like Nashville, where Democratic officials have been repeatedly targeted for allegedly creating sanctuary city conditions, despite the state banning so-called sanctuary city policies and repeatedly trying to criminalize related votes.
“We want to make sure that every city, including the one that we’re standing in, does not institute sanctuary city policies, to make sure we welcome those that aren’t supposed to be here that are wreaking havoc on our citizens,” Garrett said of Nashville.
The other bill, carried by Rep. Elaine Davis, R-Knoxville, would require local law enforcement and local governments to report data on immigration status to the state, and require public schools, universities, hospitals and prisons to report similar data on resources used by noncitizens.
Davis told the subcommittee that the bill is part of the broader immigration strategy, but also needed to ensure fiscal accountability.
“Tennessee lacks a comprehensive accounting system, and so we don’t know the fiscal impact of illegal immigration,” Davis said, noting ongoing budget hearings.
“That’s one of our primary responsibilities, is to ensure that we can address our taxpayers as to how those dollars are being spent,” she added. “If we are unaware of how those dollars are being spent, or if there’s potential fraud in the system, we’re cheating the taxpayers.”
Members of the public lashed out against the bill and community members testified about how the reporting procedures could have a cooling effect on those who need to access public education or medical treatment, a continuation of arguments that dominated the first part of this legislative session last year, as lawmakers tried to bar undocumented children from accessing public schools.
“Decades of research show that children cannot learn when they feel unsafe. That is why we are trained in trauma-informed teaching and social emotional learning,” Betsy Hopkirk, a Knox County elementary school teacher who used to teach Davis’ daughter, said. “This bill would introduce fear and distrust into our schools. It undermines the safety we work very hard to build.”
Hopkirk also questioned the logistics of who would be required to prepare these reports. Similarly, a Knox County physician expressed the impact it would have on medical care and questioned whether the data would be a HIPAA violation.
Davis’ bill was also recommended for approval with a vote along party lines, resulting in another outburst from the crowd, some of whom had already been removed by the chair.
“If the sergeant at arms would please clear the room,” Rep. Rick Eldridge, R-Morristown, said as the crowd began singing, sending the subcommittee into recess.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.