Tennessee AG reveals ICE’s plan to release illegal immigrants into the state

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office announced that efforts by the governor and other state lawmakers were successful in ultimately stopping a plan by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release illegal immigrants, including convicted criminals, into the state.

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Wednesday that after a lawsuit was filed by the attorney general’s office, ICE was forced to provide previously undisclosed information about the agency’s planned release of thousands of detained migrants, including convicted criminals.

The office said it received hundreds of pages of documents shedding light on federal authorities’ now-abandoned plan to transport potentially thousands of “single adult” immigration detainees to Tennessee.

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The findings follow a 2022 discovery by the governor’s office, when it learned that ICE had coordinated with local immigrant rights groups and Nashville officials to release large numbers of detainees into the state ahead of the public health order under Title 42 of the Federal Government was repealed.

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ICE was forced to provide previously undisclosed information about the agency’s planned release of thousands of detained migrants, including convicted criminals. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

“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,” Skrmetti said in a statement.

The records show that ICE’s plan to release migrants into Tennessee failed after opposition from Republican Gov. Bill Lee and Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty and was ultimately stopped by a successful lawsuit from the attorney general’s office.

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The office said the information further revealed that while ICE had abandoned its failed plan to mass release detainees to Tennessee, at that time the agency had still released over 7,000 detainees directly from its locations in Louisiana, including more than 30, who have been assigned the highest security level by ICE – threat level.

Central American migrants cross a fence along the southern border fence from Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California into the United States (Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images)

According to the documents, released inmates also had criminal records that included murder, sexual assault, aggravated assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, alien smuggling, drug trafficking, burglary and fraud.

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“As the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system in Washington continues, my office will continue to fight for transparency and accountability,” Skrmetti said.

This comes after that Ministry of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it is recommending that more than 100 migrants for whom it has identified possible ties to a violent Venezuelan gang be placed on an FBI watchlist after the agency flagged a total of more than 600 with possible ties.

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But officials said they do not believe all 600 migrants will be confirmed gang members and that many will be relatives, victims or witnesses to crimes committed by the notorious gang members.

ICE did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Adam Shaw of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.