License to Profile

NEWSROOM: BORDERS
Co-published with
February 19, 2026

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed that nearly 200 people, “the worst of the worst illegal criminal aliens” were arrested in Nashville. Records reveal that Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE racially profiled drivers, and that majority had no criminal record.

The Trump administration’s deployments of ICE and other federal agents to states and cities including California, Illinois and Minneapolis have led to chaos, fatal shootings, and arrests of both U.S. citizens and non-citizens. Governors in these states have fought to limit state and local cooperation with ICE and demanded accountability.

But in Tennessee, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both state legislative chambers, many elected officials have welcomed ICE with open arms. GOP Gov. Bill Lee and other state leaders have actively paired state police with ICE agents, offering the federal agency a powerful force multiplier.

In May, a week-long enforcement effort dubbed “Operation Flood the Zone” that teamed Tennessee Highway Patrol with ICE on the streets of Nashville, signaled a new level of cooperation between state leaders and the Trump administration. Nine months after the state and federal operation, Nashville residents are still searching for answers about who was taken and deported, and the role that Tennessee played in targeting residents.

In the wake of the Nashville operation, state and federal officials turned their sights on Memphis, launching the “Memphis Safe Task Force.” More than 1,500 federal agents are still working alongside hundreds of state troopers and the National Guard. City leaders and residents in both Nashville and Memphis say they have received little information from the state or the White House about these collaborations.

Lighthouse Reports in partnership with Mother Jones, the Nashville Banner, Nashville Noticias, NewsChannel 5 and the Institute for Public Service Reporting spent six months collecting and analyzing data, including thousands of pages of ICE documents, hundreds of criminal court records and Tennessee Highway Patrol incident reports. We also examined 50-plus hours of Tennessee Highway Patrol dashcam and bodycam footage. We found that 75 percent of those detained in Nashville had no criminal record, and that state troopers and ICE appeared to racially profile Latino drivers. Troopers chose to ignore traffic violations to continue helping ICE, and they targeted neighborhoods with the largest number of Latino and immigrant families. For the first time, using a vast federal database, the investigation was also able to track those targeted, from their arrests on the street through the immigration detention system and onto deportation planes. Then, when federal and state officials moved their operation from Nashville to Memphis, we followed them, analyzing hundreds of pages of arrest affidavits to find that dangerous high-speed chases, initiated by state troopers deployed to the city to work alongside ICE, increased by more than 400 percent during the first five weeks of the “Memphis Safe Task Force.”

METHODS

To determine who was arrested during the May 2025 Nashville operation, we dug into more than a million ICE records released by the Deportation Data Project. The data trove contains anonymized individual-level ICE records covering arrests, detainers, and detentions from September 2023 to October 2025, in addition to encounters and removals data from September 2023 to July 2025.

By combining these data with bystander video, interviews, police dashcam and bodycam footage, and highway patrol incident reports, we reconstructed the anatomy of the operation carried out by ICE and Tennessee Highway Patrol. This allowed us to follow people through the deportation pipeline from arrest to deportation.

By analyzing bystander video, police video, and geocoordinates in Highway Patrol incident reports we were able to map the areas of Nashville targeted by state troopers and ICE.

Additionally, in Memphis we reviewed hundreds of arrest affidavits filed over the first five weeks of the Memphis Safe Task Force from September 29 to November 3. By isolating “evading arrest” charges we identified 75 separate vehicle pursuits.

STORYLINES

During a Nashville press conference, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said of the people arrested: “All of these criminals are evil, they’re horrible human beings, they’re the worst of the worst.” In reality, 75 percent of those detained had never committed a crime, and some were in the process of becoming legal U.S. residents.

Leugim Romero was on his way home after working a late shift when he was stopped by THP and ICE. From Venezuela, Romero had filed for asylum and was in the U.S. legally. Examining the police video, we discovered that ICE accused Romero of being part of the gang Tren de Aragua because he had tattoos. Romero has since been deported to Venezuela.

Tennessee Highway Patrol officers used traffic stop pretexts such as bent license plates, unlit temporary tags, and dark window tints to pull people over, so that ICE, which can’t make routine traffic stops, could check their immigration status—and bypass constitutional and legal protections. During the stops, some ICE agents were masked and carried assault rifles and “window punches,” in case drivers refused to roll down their windows.

In Nashville, the majority of people arrested and deported were Latino. Troopers and ICE agents appeared to racially profile drivers during the operation. “This might fill us up,” says a state trooper to an ICE agent in his squad car. “They’re definitely not English speakers.” Records also show that the traffic stops resulted in few criminal or traffic law enforcement actions, despite Tennessee officials and ICE claiming the enforcement was for public safety and to arrest the “worst of the worst.”

Elsewhere in Tennessee, during the first five weeks of the Memphis Safe Task Force operation, dangerous high-speed pursuits initiated by Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers increased by 400 percent. Troopers sent to Memphis are working alongside ICE and other federal agents. In one case, a pursuit lasted for a quarter-hour, as troopers at high speeds pursued a blue Chevy Malibu with a woman and infant inside. The vehicle struck a trooper’s squad car, then a telephone pole. The pursuit was initiated because the driver had “failed to dim his bright lights.”

CO-PUBLICATIONS