A lawsuit filed by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has exposed plans by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release illegals into the state, including those convicted of violent crimes, including rape and murder.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced that following the success of the lawsuit, ICE was forced to produce hundreds of pages of previously undisclosed information about the agency’s release of thousands of detained migrants, including dangerous convicted criminals.
The records show that ICE’s plan to release migrants into this State was derailed by pushback from Tennessee’s Governor and U.S. Senators and ultimately stopped through successful litigation by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office and other States.
The information further reveals that although ICE abandoned its failed plan for the mass release of detainees into Tennessee, the agency nonetheless released over 7,000 detainees directly from its Louisiana facilities at that time, including more than 30 who were assigned ICE’s highest security-threat level. Released detainees had criminal records, including homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault with a weapon, armed robbery, kidnapping, smuggling aliens, drug trafficking, burglary, and fraud.
Skrmetti said, “The federal government’s single most important job is to keep dangerous people out of our country and instead it has let killers and rapists illegally cross our border and walk free on our streets.”
“While the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system continues in Washington, my Office will keep fighting for transparency and accountability.”
The plan was exposed in December of 2022 when the Governor’s Office learned that ICE had been coordinating with local immigration-rights groups and Nashville officials to release large numbers of detainees into Tennessee before the anticipated termination of the federal government’s Title 42 public health order.
Federal authorities initially refused to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests from the AG’s office, resulting in the lawsuit.
Ultimately, ICE produced records that revealed:
- Coordination between ICE, Nashville city officials, and a Tennessee immigration nonprofit to arrange for the mass release of detainees into Tennessee
- ICE originally planned to release thousands of single, adult, non-citizen detainees from its Louisiana detention facilities into Tennessee
- Data from ICE showing the release from its Louisiana detention facilities of non-citizen detainees with violent criminal records, including murder, rape, and kidnapping
You can find the documents from ICE here.
Today, @AGTennessee revealed hundreds of pages of records showing that ICE knowingly released murderers and rapists from its migrant detention facilities onto American streets.
TN obtained the records through a FOIA lawsuit.
Our office will keep fighting to hold the federal… pic.twitter.com/Ng17niPtHU
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) October 23, 2024
