RELEASE: Immigrant Rights Advocates File Lawsuit Against Putnam County Sheriff Over Withheld Immigration Detention Records

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 2, 2026

CONTACT

media@tnimmigrant.org

Immigrant Rights Advocates File Lawsuit Against Putnam County Sheriff Over Withheld Immigration Detention Records

Petitioners demand transparency after agency refuses to release public documents related to individuals detained in Putnam County Jail on civil immigration charges

COOKEVILLE, TENN—Today, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Meghan Conley filed a complaint in Putnam County Chancery Court seeking access to public records they have been lawfully requesting since October 2025.

TIRRC and Conley have repeatedly requested access to public records in the possession of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) and Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris in order to identify the people that are held on federal civil immigration charges and to shed light on those detention practices. PCSO and Sheriff Farris, while failing to cite any legal grounds for doing so, have refused to produce any such records. As a result, they are detaining people in secret.

Currently, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains people in middle Tennessee on suspicion of a civil immigration violation, it typically arranges for them to be held for several days in or near Tennessee before transporting them to a longer-term detention center further away. During this initial period, the detainees are often held in county jails that have a contract with ICE, including the Putnam County Jail and the Knox County Detention Center. During this period, the information available from ICE is difficult to access, incomplete, or nonexistent. So in the hours and days following an ICE arrest, families are often forced to search for their loved ones by checking with jails that are commonly used as stops in transit.

When that transit jail is the Knox County Detention Center, information on detainees is available on a public website. But it is another story when the transit jail is the Putnam County Jail. Putnam County no longer posts the names of immigration detainees on its public website and has refused to provide records that show the identity and movements of immigration detainees. As a result, Putnam County regularly holds these detainees in secret, causing personal anguish for families and barriers to exercising the legal rights of detainees.

Click here to read the full complaint.

Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition Executive Director, Lisa Sherman Luna, announced the lawsuit this afternoon saying:

“Our country is at an inflection point as federal immigration officials escalate their violent crackdowns on immigrant communities and the president wields ICE as a national police force aimed at his perceived enemies. At such a time, it's more important than ever that Tennesseans hold local leaders to account for any role in such atrocities, and public records are a cornerstone of exercising that right.

When law enforcement authorities take a human being into their custody, information about that detention cannot be secret, full stop. As the current administration continues to erode the norms of our democracy, we cannot let this bedrock of our legal system crumble.”

Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition attorney Mike Holley said:

“The Tennessee Public Records Act ensures that ordinary Tennesseans can access information about how their government works and how government authority is being exercised in their name. It is important for all of us that local agencies comply with their obligations under this law.

All Tennesseans deserve leaders who will be transparent and honest with the people they are charged with protecting. 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 arrest our neighbors and then limit access to public records about their conduct.”

Meghan Conley, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who made public records requests in her individual capacity, said:

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s resistance to transparency makes local records all the more critical for understanding how state and local law enforcement agencies collaborate with immigration enforcement and detention operations. As a researcher, public records are one of the primary tools I use to understand how these partnerships operate in practice.

I requested these records as part of my ongoing research to document and analyze immigration enforcement partnerships in the state. Unlike ICE, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office is obligated to answer to Tennessee residents, and I’m confident that Tennessee’s public records law will enforce that obligation.”

###

The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) is a statewide, immigrant and refugee-led collaboration whose mission is to build power, amplify our voices, and organize communities to advocate for our rights in order to build a stronger, more inclusive Tennessee where people of all nationalities, immigration statuses, and racial identities can belong and thrive. Since its founding in 2001, TIRRC has grown from a grassroots network of community leaders into one of the most diverse and effective coalitions of its kind, a model for emerging immigrant rights organizations in the Southeast and throughout the United States.