Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti stated today that his office’s successful lawsuit forced United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide previously undisclosed information about the release of thousands of detained migrants, including dangerous convicted criminals.
The records disclose ICE’s now-abandoned plan to transport potentially thousands of “single adult” immigration prisoners to Tennessee.
According to the records, ICE’s plan to release detainees into the state was blocked due to strong resistance from Tennessee’s Governor and U.S. Senators and was eventually prevented through litigation by Tennessee’s Attorney General’s Office, along with other states.
Despite abandoning the plan, ICE released nearly 7,000 inmates from its Louisiana prisons, including more than 30 persons classified as the most serious security danger. The released detainees had a criminal record that included homicide, sexual assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and other charges.
“The federal government’s single most important job is to keep dangerous people out of our country, but instead it has let killers and rapists illegally cross our border and walk free on our streets,” said Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. “While the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system continues in Washington, my office will keep fighting for transparency and accountability.”
In December 2022, Tennessee’s Governor found that ICE had been collaborating with local immigration-rights groups and Nashville politicians to release a significant number of detainees into the state, coinciding with the expected termination of the federal Title 42 public health order. In response, the Attorney General’s Office immediately sought answers from the federal government. When ICE did not reply to the state’s Freedom of Information Act requests, the Attorney General’s Office launched a lawsuit.
The case prompted ICE to produce hundreds of pages of records, which revealed:
- Coordination between ICE, Nashville city officials, and a Tennessee immigration nonprofit to arrange the mass release of detainees into the state.
- Plans by ICE to release thousands of single adult, non-citizen detainees from Louisiana detention facilities into Tennessee.
- Data showing that many of the released detainees had violent criminal records, including murder, rape, and kidnapping.
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office continues to advocate for transparency in immigration rules and practices to protect its residents.
