An immigrants rights group is accusing the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security of withholding public records tied to mass immigration sweeps in Nashville earlier this year.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Davidson County Chancery Court, the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition says they have been denied video, data, call logs and other records connected to a joint operation by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, or THP, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement that resulted in the detention of nearly 200 people.
These records could “shed light on the THP’s dubious efforts to use its state powers to enforce federal civil immigration laws through stops, interrogations, and detentions of motorists on Tennessee roadways,” the lawsuit said.
A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security, which oversees the THP, did not respond to a request for comment about the claims.
“It’s not only our legal right, but also our duty as an organization that prioritizes the rights of immigrants and refugees across the state of Tennessee that we hold leaders accountable when they harm our neighbors and then limit access to public records about their conduct,” a statement by Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said.
“Flood the zone”
The THP and federal immigration agents partnered in the so-called “Operation Flood the Zone” to make hundreds of traffic stops in heavily immigrant neighborhoods on the south side of Nashville beginning May 3.
Within a week, THP reported it had stopped 588 vehicles and made 103 arrests of drivers or passengers for suspected immigration violations, the suit noted.
State officials have failed to turn over any video footage of the traffic stops requested by the nonprofit group, provided heavily redacted call logs that would reveal the identities of those stopped and, in some instances, simply ceased responding to follow-up questions about the status of the group’s records request, the lawsuit alleges. Neither federal nor state agencies have given a full accounting of all individuals stopped or detained during the operation.
Among the footage being sought is of the May 8 or 9 detention of Juana Santizo-Tadeo. The footage was first requested by her attorney on June 11, the suit said.
Video of Santizo-Tadeo’s arrest and detention has not been provided even as she was scheduled for an immigration hearing Aug. 18 to assert “widespread” and “egregious” constitutional violations during the operation. The video, the suit said, serves as “important evidence” in a “critical immigration hearing.”
In July, the Department of Safety and Homeland Security notified the Tennessee Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights that it had located the relevant footage and requested a payment of $161 to produce it.
On August 1, the department acknowledged receipt of payment for the footage but said it would take until Sept. 24 to either produce it or make a “determination of accessibility or availability.”
“The Department’s delay in producing this video footage from a single traffic stop, which is important to the detainee’s immigration proceedings, is unwarranted and consequently a willful violation” of the state’s public records act.
The lawsuit also claims the Department of Safety and Homeland Safety in one instance claimed it was withholding certain reports from its computer dispatched system at the request of Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk.
But Funk said he was “invoking no such privilege over the records and to provide the records to the public,” an email from Funk, introduced in legal filings, showed.
The department continues to withhold those reports, the lawsuit said.
