Why Nashville is not a sanctuary city, and what that means

Sanctuary cities are in the spotlight after President Donald Trump's executive order earlier this year threatened to restrict federal funds to any city that identifies as one. And with Mayor Megan Barry's promise that Metro police will not be used to enforce federal immigration policies, some Nashvillians are confused.

Is Nashville a sanctuary city?

No, the city is not.

What is a sanctuary city?

The name itself has become a political statement and has no legal meaning, but cities with sanctuary policies typically decline to cooperate with federal immigration officials outside of what is specifically required by law.

The cities also often provide outreach programs to residents who have entered the country illegally.

In practice, immigration authorities need local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration laws, but courts across the nation have ruled most of that help has to come voluntarily. Under the law, municipalities need only share information with the federal government and maintain a line of communication with immigration authorities.

That information sharing comes in the form of a shared database put into place by President Barack Obama in 2009 when he unrolled the Secure Communities program. When local jails process new inmates, their fingerprints are uploaded and automatically shared with the FBI and, in Tennessee's case, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which in turn shares with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

If ICE decides it is interested in someone who's been booked into jail, it will request that local law enforcement hold that person for up to 48 hours, allowing immigration authorities time to pick up the inmate. Under federal law, fulfilling these "detainer" requests is voluntary, unless agents show up with a warrant signed by a judge.

Cities with sanctuary policies typically refuse to fill the detainers, although they must still respond to a judicial warrant.

In Nashville, the Davidson County Sheriff's Office runs the county jails and honors these voluntary requests from immigration authorities.

Why deny detainer requests?

Filling ICE detainer requests is voluntary because cities and local taxpayers are primarily responsible for footing the bill — not the federal government — for both the additional cost of housing inmates and for potential civil rights abuses.

Detaining any person on U.S. soil after they would have otherwise been released violates the Fourth Amendment right against unlawful arrest and detention, courts have ruled.

Ultimately, municipalities and local taxpayers are liable in any civil rights lawsuit.

For instance, Nashville paid $490,000 in a settlement after a judge ruled Juana Villegas' civil rights had been violated when the sheriff's office shackled her to the bed while she was in labor. Villegas was held for ICE after being arrested for not having a driver's license. Her charges were later dismissed.

Taxpayer money is spent on holding people in jail, and they are not compensated for holding people for ICE past the time when they would have otherwise been released. In 2016, the Davidson County jail held people 771 times for ICE at a cost of over $100 per day, according to the sheriff's office.

Nearly 600 people were ultimately turned over to immigration authorities last year.

Are sanctuary cities unsafe?

Studies show sanctuary cities and those with sanctuary policies reduce crime rates or have no effect on crime at all.

A study at the University of California at Riverside last year found that sanctuary policies caused immigrant communities to report more crimes and had no statistically relevant effect on overall crime rates.

The study found that immigrant communities actually have lower crime rates than their U.S.-born counterparts.

There also are about 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared with non-sanctuary counties, according to the Center for American Progress in January.

The report concludes that when police do not arrest people for immigration status, they are better able to foster trust in communities, enhancing overall public safety. This is the same argument the Metro Nashville Police Department and Barry are using for not working closely with immigration officials.

El Protector, an outreach program for Nashville's sizable Latino and foreign-born population, was created by Metro police more than 10 years ago.

If those who entered the nation illegally fear deportation, they are less likely to call police when they are victims of or witnesses to a crime, according to Metro Officer Gilbert Ramirez, who heads up the program.

"(Ramirez) uses Facebook, Hispanic radio, Hispanic newspapers, and community events to inform folks," Barry said in a statement last week. "His message is that immigration status alone is irrelevant to the MNPD in protecting and serving this community."

She also cited the Office of New Americans, which works with the immigrant and refugee community to create and advocate for policies that support immigrants, an increase in the budget for Metro Schools to better serve English language learner students and work with Metro departments and agencies on ways to improve language access to those for whom English is a second language.

Sen. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, who introduced a bill in January aimed at banning sanctuary policies across the state, said police officers should make arrests based solely on immigration status.

The bill would force cities to support federal immigration enforcement using local resources or lose state funding.

"If Megan Barry says to her cops, 'You don't do that. You let them go,' then we're going to take her funding," Green said last month.

Do immigrants feel safe in Nashville?

Immigrants in Nashville report they are still frightened of calling the police or appearing in court. Since Trump's election, they are bracing for possible mass deportations.

“People are terrified,” said Mary Kathryn Harcombe, who has been a public defender in Davidson County for the past 12 years. “Never before the past couple of months have I thought, ‘I am so glad that I’m a citizen.' "

Harcombe works closely with the Nashville immigrant community as part of her job running the Public Defender’s Office’s New Americans Project advising clients and other public defenders on how the outcome of their clients' criminal cases could affect their immigration status.

She said the police have done an excellent job of building relationships with immigrants but that the federal government is eroding that trust.

For example, a small child was sexually abused in 2014, but her mother was afraid that if she called police, she'd be deported and taken from her children, said Stephanie Teatro, the co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

"The neighbor convinced her to at least come talk to our organization, and then it took us nearly three hours to convince her to call the police," she said.

And every time someone without a legal status in the United States is arrested, even for failure to show proof of a driver's license, they could be subject to deportation.

"You hear so much about, 'Well, they’re illegal, they’re here illegally, they’re breaking the law,' " Harcombe said. “Laws change, and laws need to change as society evolves.”

How does Nashville support immigration enforcement?

The police, under the mayor's guidance, do not ask anyone for information about their immigration status.

But the Davidson County Sheriff's Office gets involved beyond what is required by law.

In addition to honoring voluntary detainer requests, the office notifies ICE whenever someone federal authorities are interested in has finished their sentence so that immigration officials can come and pick that person up before they are released.

In addition, the sheriff's office houses inmates for ICE. The office has an agreement with ICE that sets aside a portion of its jail beds for ICE.

What about the 287(g) program talked about so often?

Nashville in the past took part in the voluntary 287(g) program, which was revived in one of Trump's first executive orders. The program trains and deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration officials, allowing them to investigate whether someone entered the country legally.

Barry said she thinks it is appropriate to work with federal immigration officials to "remove criminals who are involved in dangerous activity such as drugs, guns or gangs and pose a genuine threat to our community." But she said returning to the 287(g) program is a bad idea.

“Efforts to conscript our police force into the role of immigration enforcement agents, or return to the days of 287(g), would create fear and distrust within the community, would undermine our efforts towards community policing, and fundamentally make Nashville less safe and secure," she said.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall also said he will not participate in 287(g) again.

"As far as I'm concerned, the president can't order us to do that," Hall said. "It would be the city or community saying that they would like to participate, and clearly that's not going to happen here."

Lawmaker introduces Tennessee 'sanctuary city' ban

Will this change under the new administration?

Before Trump took office, the Department of Homeland Security instructed immigration authorities to focus on convicted violent offenders, but that is no longer the case.

Under Secure Communities and the president's executive orders on immigration, a person need only be charged with a crime for ICE to pick them up and place them into deportation proceedings.

In an effort to pressure sanctuary cities, the Department of Homeland Security on Monday published a list of 118 localities that have refused to cooperate with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants, something Trump decreed in late January. Over half of detainers, 56 percent, were people charged with crimes but not convicted.

Harcombe warned the sweeping mandates would lead to chaotic and random enforcement.

"The priorities they gave are so broad as to target everyone and render them meaningless," she said. "There has never, at least in my professional tenure, been an administration that had this attitude toward deporting people in our community."

Harcombe said she expected to see more detainer requests placed on people who've been charged with misdemeanors, such as not having a driver's license.

And the sheriff said that was a possibility.

"Clearly, if they change their priorities, the volume of people they could impact is very large," Hall said. "I understand the fear."

Sheriff's spokeswoman Karla West said that, after seeking advice from Metro lawyers two weeks ago, the office understands that immigration detainers are optional.

"We will continue to honor them, as we have for decades," she said. "However, we will closely monitor the number of detainers being issued, and should that number dramatically increase, we will re-evaluate."

Reach Ariana Sawyer at asawyer@tennessean.com and on Twitter @a_maia_sawyer.

Nashville's immigrant population

• Nashville’s foreign-born population doubled in the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, from 58,539 to 118,126, becoming 7.4 percent of Nashville’s total population.
• That number has since increased to 12 percent, meaning more than one in every 10 Nashvillians was born outside the U.S.
• The majority of the 11 million immigrants who entered the country illegally have lived in the U.S. for a decade or more.
• Most have children and other family members who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. 
• Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor crime. 
• Staying in the country without a legal status is punishable by civil penalties and is not a criminal offense under the law. 
• About 30 percent of Metro Schools' student population from the 2015-16 school year — or just over 25,300 children — learned English as a second language. Spanish is the most commonly spoken language after English.

Data source: The Human Rights Watch, Pew Research Center, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, Metro Nashville Public Schools