Immigration & Naturalization Attorneys has been practicing immigration law in Nashville and Davidson County since 2004. As an immigration lawyer coming from California I was surprised by the amount and diversity of immigrants that were living in Nashville, Franklin, Murfreesboro, Dixon, Ashland City, Brentwood and in the agricultural communities of McMinnville and Smithville.

In 2007 Davidson County adopted the Immigration and Custom Enforcement - ICE - 287(g) program that was passed by Congress in 1996. The federal 287(g) program authorizes local governments to screen arrested individuals to detect illegal immigrants and thereafter enter them into deportation proceedings. So far, as of April of 2010 more than 7,700 individuals have been processed through Nashville ICE programs.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall has been an outspoken supporter of the ICE program's application in Nashville, arguing the approach has been effective in decreasing crime among illegal immigrants. But my experience along with several reports show a different picture.

A report from the National Council of La Raza claims 287(g) has in fact been ineffective in decreasing crime. The study says the program has too often led to the arrests of people who have no criminal background and the detention of individuals for offenses such as traffic stops and playing loud music.

The report goes further, suggesting Nashville’s Latino residents are often deterred from reporting criminal incidents to law enforcement officials because of potential consequences for doing so. A survey conducted in Davidson County found that 42 percent of Latino respondents said they knew of a crime but had not reported it to Metro police out of fear of deportation.

The survey also found 54 percent of Latinos in Davidson County would not report a crime altogether, compared with 27 percent of African-Americans who would not. According to the report, the Latino and black respondents share similar economic backgrounds and living situations.

In April of 2010 The Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., released what it called a “damning critique” of the federal 287(g) program.

The report on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General highlights what the IPC calls “numerous shortcomings that lead to abuse and mismanagement and raises serious questions about the wisdom of state and local immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE.”

In its release, the IPC wrote that the report found the program to be “poorly managed and supervised,” “lacks strict guidelines for implementation,” doesn’t gather necessary data for tracking how the program is being used and doesn’t properly reach out to the public, leading to inaccurate information about 287(g) in the community.

The release quoted IPC Director Mary Giovagnoli as saying, “The OIG report is further evidence that the Administration has yet to distinguish between deporting large numbers of immigrants and making us safe.

“In the rush to engage state and local law enforcement on federal immigration matters, ICE has created a program that lacks oversight, undermines community relations, and breeds mistrust. As proven time and time again, a deportation-driven strategy exacts a high toll on individuals and communities with little real impact in stopping illegal immigration.”

How did the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office respond? Karla Weikal, spokeswoman for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, said Sheriff Daron Hall in implementing Nashville’s version of the program has been proactive in explaining the ICE program to the Nashville community, and his office hasn’t waited for mandates from the federal government to improve its implementation of the program.

She said Davidson County’s 287(g) program uses the jail model of the program in which individuals are only processed after police arrest them as opposed to the task force model which deputizes officers to actively seek immigration violators out on the street.

“Nashville is unique, and there are several checks and balances in this city that really don’t hold up to the criticisms that you could make in other jurisdictions,” Weikal said. However, my experience is that police arrest suspected illegal aliens for minor infractions and bring them in for processing while letting people go who don’t appear to be an alien.

On the issue of public outreach, Weikal said, “Sheriff Hall is really the only sheriff in the nation who put together an advisory council that was an extremely large council and made of some of the most active immigrant advocates in the community.

I would just say that we don’t necessarily need the federal government to tell us to do certain things because we are already doing them.” My experience is that the advisory council has raised the abuses to Sheriff Hall and his reaction has been to fire the people who raise up these concerns.

Since Davidson County joined the 287(g) program, dozens of other cities have joined and President Obama has supported this expansion. It is the wave of the future and for anyone who has an opportunity to file for an immigration benefit, they need to file it before they are picked up and processed.

This is especially true given the recent round of anti immigrant law pushed by Nashville lawmakers in 2011.Murfreesboro Representative Joe Carr sponsored bills that passed out of the House State and Local Government Committees.

One of them was dubbed an “Arizona copycat law” by the American Civil Liberties Union and would allow police to question the legal status of anyone they stop. Tennessee ACLU director Hedy Weinberg said, “Bottom line, it betrays American values and equality. It encourages racial profiling.”

Under the proposed law, a law enforcement officer would make an “instant check” by computer or telephone to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the detainee is an illegal alien.

Representative Carr defended the law saying it’s not a “stop and frisk” law: “The only way that law enforcement can make the… determination as to the legal status is in the course of… an otherwise made lawful stop.” Carr says officers will be trained by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the “POST” Commission, before being allowed to enforce the new law.

The committee also approved a bill requiring employers to use the federal “E-verify” system, to be sure that the name and Social Security number given by a job applicant matches someone in the federal government’s data base. The other approved measure would bar illegal immigrants from receiving government benefits.

The bills are:

HB 1378 Carr/SB1669 Tracy, the Tennessee Lawful Employment Act (E-verify).

In the House the bill now goes to the Government Operations Committee. In the Senate it has been sent to the Senate Finance Committee.

Business lobbyists have complained that the bill will be difficult to comply with, and the system being used is not a lot better than the verification step they are already using to clock their new hires into the Social Security system.

Carr responded to the concerns: “We are working with the governor’s staff. The governor’s staff has some legitimate concerns that we don’t unnecessarily inhibit economic activity in the state. …I still believe that we’re, at best, in a very lethargic economy, but more probably still in a recession. And we’ve still got over 9 percent unemployment. That’s way too high. So anything we do with regard to any of these three pieces of legislation, we don’t want to create the environment where we’re not business-friendly.”

However Carr stayed by his basic argument, echoed by the fears expressed by many in Nashville, that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that rightfully should go to Tennesseans. “We want to stand up for the rights of lawful workers to work in this state, and lawful business who want to employ those lawful workers, and not allow them to be unnecessarily displaced because somebody is an illegal immigrant who happens to work cheaper, and …the employer won’t pay those taxes.”

In my view, Nashville should publish its government information, especially business services and educational opportunities, in as many languages as possible to attract foreign investment. However, it is true that as the United States economy matures and shrinks, with gas at $6.00 a gallon and no social security, welfare or health care, more US workers will have to start working in agriculture, construction, and low paying tourist industries and they should not have to compete against illegal workers.

At CINA, we are a community of immigration & naturalization attorneys who are dedicated to serving the needs of people who want to immigrate to the United States. 

Headquartered in Nashville, if you need immigration help, contact us by calling 1-877-381-2814 toll free.

Your first consultation with a CINA lawyer is FREE.