State troopers pulled out of the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Ezell Pike headquarters around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, May 10. Unmarked cars tailed each black-and-tan SUV, heading west toward South Nashville’s busy state roads.
While state troopers watched Nashville drivers on Antioch Pike and Harding Place, a volunteer team watched law enforcement from private vehicles. The loosely coordinated MigraWatch network has peer groups across the country. The effort, meant to witness and document activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in local communities, turns concerned citizens into a patrol of their own.
An unknown number of people were detained in traffic stops and surrendered to federal immigration authorities, then bused out of state
“ Doing this, in a weird way, helps restore my hope in humanity,” says a MigraWatch volunteer who asks to be referred to by just the initial A, working their third three-hour shift of the week. “Cops are only there because they’re paid to do the work, and we know that cops are struggling to recruit right now.  But there are so many people who are showing up to look out for their friends and neighbors.  I can’t control the course of the world, but that doesn’t mean I have to go quietly or sit by and do absolutely nothing.”
Dozens of people were suddenly detained in Nashville by state troopers and ICE in the early hours of Sunday, May 4, setting off a chaotic week that included community vigils, press conferences and a contentious special-called city council committee meeting. The city had advance warning of the mass operation, according to a phone call from a federal agent shared last week. Amid harsh criticism for any cooperation between the city and immigration enforcement, Mayor Freddie O’Connell amended a previous executive order hoping to better track and report immigration-related activity.Â
May 10, Metro legal director Wally Dietz joined O’Connell for a weekly press briefing. “ The short answer is, yes, we are powerless,” Dietz told reporters. “We have absolutely no authority to instruct ICE not to carry out their enforcement actions. We have no authority to tell THP they cannot cooperate with ICE.”
MigraWatch did not verify any ICE traffic stops on Saturday or Sunday nights. Both days, agents were seen on Lower Broadway, where immigrants form the backbone of busy kitchens and bars serving tourists. According to one Lower Broad employee, some establishments closed early or limited service over the weekend due to ICE agents, including Margaritaville and Honky Tonk Central.Â
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Statements from Metro Nashville Public Schools director Adrienne Battle and Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake have attempted to reassure residents about their safety, despite the plain uptick in immigration-related arrests and detentions. Afraid to drive on major state roads, some residents have chosen to stay home from work or defer daily errands.Â
Joining MigraWatch has given A a productive way to channel their energy since the January inauguration of Donald Trump.
“ I have no problem being confrontational with bullies, and these people want to separate and divide us,” A continues. “They might be starting with my immigrant friends and neighbors, but they aren’t stopping there. I’m not gonna go down without resisting every inch of the way.”
Each night is different. A doesn’t know — or doesn’t say — how many MigraWatch volunteers are out on this Friday night or where they’re stationed. “Verifiers,” A explains, are connected by an encrypted group message that shares by-the-minute locations of traffic stops and videos and photos taken during THP and ICE interactions.Â
Around 10 p.m., we see flashing lights next to the Exxon at the corner of Harding Place and Metroplex Drive, near an I-24 exit. One state trooper walks between his official vehicle and the car he’s just pulled over. Three unmarked cars — a white Chevrolet Impala, a burgundy Dodge Charger and gray Jeep Grand Cherokee — trail behind him like a “hunting pack,” says A. These are the assumed federal agents. They stare straight ahead. Behind rolled-up tinted windows, they wear mismatched versions of the same informal uniform: tan or blue pants, boots, body armor, baseball cap. Another verifier team has already witnessed the stop, which they say involved a white driver, lasted less than five minutes and resulted in no citation. The Tennessee Highway Patrol did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Scene.Â
The caravan pulls out and detains a new driver in a silver minivan minutes later, pulling into a McDonald’s parking lot across Harding. Quickly, A follows, arriving in time to see the stop from the beginning. Another verifier is already there and speaks loudly to the confused-looking driver, a young Hispanic man, advising him of his constitutional rights in Spanish, while the state trooper runs his identification. The officer stopped the car for a dead brake light, the driver says; a volunteer walks behind the minivan to confirm that all lights work fine. The same three unmarked vehicles wait in nearby parking spots. No officers respond to questions from the Scene. Then, without explanation, the officer let the man go.Â
“That was the best-case scenario,” A says.Â
The Scene witnessed two more stops by THP, both involving white drivers that lasted just a few minutes and resulted in no citations. In one case, an MNPD patrol car did help a state trooper pull over a driver but did not participate in the traffic stop. Outside the Sam’s Club on Antioch Pike, one white driver said he was pulled over by troopers for going 48 in a 45.Â
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Catch-and-release behavior from THP picked up dramatically the previous weekend and continued for several nights. Areas targeted are predominantly Hispanic, and observers tell the Scene that the stops rarely seem to stem from credible traffic violations or produce citations, leading observers to confidently describe the actions as racial profiling by law enforcement. Federal agents can’t make traffic stops, so instead work in tandem with THP, which by state code has the authority to communicate immigration status to the Department of Homeland Security.
Tedious and time-consuming, the dragnet strategy enables state troopers to stop a driver in the presence of ICE agents. To make a legal arrest, federal immigration officers must have “probable cause” that an individual has broken immigration law or federal law, though legal guardrails around ICE arrests are still very much in flux. Agents and troopers have stopped, detained, arrested or initiated deportation proceedings for hundreds of people in Nashville; of those, just three have been tied to violent crime, according to the Nashville Banner.
“ None of these people who were detained had a criminal record,” Isa, a volunteer who has worked with MigraWatch, recently told a crowd in the Glencliff High School parking lot. The group was gathered last week for a vigil for those detained by ICE. “They were protected. They had their license. And now they’re being looked at as criminals. They were coming off from work, they were coming back from hanging out with family. They were going back to their, to their wife, to their kids. They look at my people as criminals, and they look at me as a criminal too.”
