Nashville Mayor Signs Executive Order to Create Early Warning System for Immigration Enforcement Operations

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell on Friday reportedly signed an executive order to establish protocols for various Metro Nashville departments to provide the mayor’s office with any information deemed “immigration communications,” which might reflect forthcoming federal immigration enforcement in the city.

O’Connell appears to have actually amended his Executive Order 30, which is titled Communications Between Federal Immigration Authorities and the Metropolitan Government. The order mandates any communication to Nashville police, fire, emergency management, or emergency communications personnel by federal immigration law enforcement, or their federal agencies, be reported to the Mayor’s Office of New Americans.

The order also specifies that any communications between federal officials and “a Metro non-emergency services department or office,” be reported to the mayor’s office.

Notably, Nashville Director of Law Wally Dietz recently confirmed that a DHS official called emergency services in Nashville to request additional patrols outside a federal facility days ahead of the recent immigration enforcement operation between Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but that the request was not shared with Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) until the time the DHS official requested.

This led activists and members of the Metro council to demand changes at a meeting last Thursday, specifically to require require information sharing on potential federal immigration enforcement between various city departments. Emergency services confirmed such changes were on the way.

“Certainly, hindsight being 20/20, we are having a lot of conversations now with the mayor’s office, and with Legal, to determine what sort of notifications we can put in place,” said Metro Emergency Communications Director Stephen Martini last week.

Under the mayor’s executive order, notification of the communication between the DHS official and the police dispatcher would have been required to be submitted to the mayor’s office within one business day.

The executive order also implements a training program for the Metropolitan Department of Human Resources, Department of Law, and Mayor’s Office of New Americans to train other Nashville employees on what is considered immigration information that must be reported to O’Connell.

Activists have nonetheless decried the immigration enforcement, including the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), whose executive director accused THP and ICE of “kidnapping our people off the street based on nothing but the color of their skin.”

Despite their opposition to the agency under the Trump administration, TIRRC indicated it would assist ICE in 2022, when the Biden administration sought its assistance with a plot to release thousands of illegal immigrants into Tennessee from a detention facility in Louisiana.

– – –

Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Mayor Freddie O’Connell” by Mayor Freddie O’Connell.