Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti exposes ICE’s release of dangerous convicted criminals into the state – Clarksville Online

Nashville, TN – Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced today that following a successful lawsuit by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) was forced to release previously undisclosed information regarding the release of thousands of detained migrants, including also more dangerous, convicted criminals presented by the authorities.

The hundreds of pages of documents obtained shed light on federal authorities’ now-abandoned plan to transport potentially thousands of “single adult” immigration detainees to Tennessee.

The records show that ICE’s plan to release migrants into the state was defeated by opposition from Tennessee’s governor and U.S. senators and ultimately stopped by successful litigation by the Tennessee attorney general’s office and other states.

The information further shows that while ICE abandoned its failed plan to mass release detainees to Tennessee, the agency still released over 7,000 detainees directly from its facilities in Louisiana at that time, including more than 30 who were considered ICE’s highest security threat level was assigned. Released inmates had criminal records including murder, sexual assault, aggravated assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, alien smuggling, drug trafficking, burglary and fraud.

“The most important task of the federal government is to keep dangerous people out of our country. Instead, it has allowed murderers and rapists to illegally cross our border and walk freely on our streets,” said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. “As the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system continues in Washington, my office will continue to fight for transparency and accountability.”

In December 2022, the governor’s office learned that ICE had coordinated with local immigrant rights groups and Nashville officials to release a large number of detainees into Tennessee before the federal government’s Title 42 public health order was lifted.

With support from the governor, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office immediately worked to get answers from the federal government. When federal authorities failed to respond to Tennessee Freedom of Information Act requests, the attorney general’s office filed suit.

As a result of the litigation, ICE searched and produced hundreds of pages of response documents that revealed:

• Coordination between ICE, Nashville city officials and a Tennessee immigration nonprofit to initiate the mass release of detainees to Tennessee
• ICE originally planned to release thousands of single adult noncitizens from its detention facilities in Louisiana to Tennessee
• ICE data shows the release from its Louisiana detention centers of non-citizen detainees who have criminal records and have committed violent crimes, including murder, rape and kidnapping

ICE’s documents can be found here.