*RELEASE* Nashville Leaders and Immigration Advocates Adamantly Rejected ICE's Newest National Surveillance Hub Planned for Nashville

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 21, 2026

Link to Downloadable Video of Presser
Nashville Leaders and Immigration Advocates Adamantly Rejected ICE's Newest National Surveillance Hub Planned for Nashville

Metro Nashville Councilmembers and Local Advocates Gather to Condemn the National ICE Call Center Contract Set for Donelson

NASHVILLE, TN—Today, Metro Nashville Councilmembers and local advocates gathered to condemn the National ICE Call Center contract that has recently been set for Donelson (ZIP code 37214), adjusting the contract previously proposed for Adams, TN. This national call center appears to be one of the first of its kind as increased funding passed in Congress this June for ICE & DHS further incentivizes projects for local and federal law enforcement collaboration. As of August 20, the updated contract states that this call center will streamline the processes of the 287(g) Program–a national program that allows for local law enforcement agencies to act as federal immigration enforcement–with a focus on targeting vulnerable individuals who immigrated to the United States as unaccompanied children.

Cali VanCleve, Advocacy Manager for the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) said, “ICE & DHS are taking our land and building a local facility for law enforcement agencies to streamline their terrors of family separation and mass deportation across the country. This call center will not just affect our communities in Nashville and in Tennessee, but it will send significant and harmful ripple effects across the nation – making the land, people, and tax dollars of our city complicit in this administration’s heinous, cruel, and costly mass detention and deportation agenda.”

Tessa Lemos Del Pino, Co-Executive Director of Tennessee Justice For Our Neighbors (TNJFON) said, “The government is required by law to protect undocumented children living in this country without a guardian. This is to protect them from abuse, exploitation or being trafficked. Instead, our government is funding a call center that ostensibly puts a target on their back. If young children are caught up into this system, they could be at risk of deportation without legal representation from an attorney. These children are a part of our community. They should be focusing on the start of a new school year. ICE was founded in 2003, and since then they have become the largest federal law enforcement agency with a budget millions of dollars more than most other militaries in the world.”

Metro Nashville Councilmember for District 27, Terry Vo, shared the personal story of Lilly Kitamoto Kodama, a Japanese American who is about to turn 92 years old but at the age of 7 was sent to a Japanese internment Camp with her family. After sharing the story Vo shared, “Lilly's story is not simply history. It is a warning about what happens when fear determines who belongs. Lilly has spent decades telling her story because she understands something we cannot afford to forget: Nidoto Nai Yoni. Let it not happen again. And yet today, we are seeing the expansion of immigration enforcement into our communities. We are seeing expanded cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement.” Councilmember Vo ending saying, “Nashvillians have made it clear. We want none of this. We oppose the expansion of ICE whether in the streets or in a call center, or in our police force. We have a choice today. We can choose fear—or community. We can choose surveillance—or trust. We can choose separation—or belonging. I choose belonging. I choose trust. I choose our children.”

Sandra Sepulveda, Metro Nashville Councilmember for District 30, which represents a large majority of the city’s immigrant & Latino population, addressed the council’s commitment to resisting the ICE Call Center stating, “We don’t want a call center. We as a council will look at every possible solution to make sure that we regulate any new expansion, building, or operation that may target our communities,” Sepulveda went on to remark about the hardship that the immigrant community has been facing since throughout the current administration’s mass deportation agenda. “We saw businesses struggling & being shut down, children being afraid to go to school…but we also saw our community step up [to provide support]. That is the Nashville I know. That is the Nashville that is here. This call center is not Nashville, and we will make sure that we do everything in our power to prevent it. We have a responsibility to all Nashvillians, whether they were born here or raised here, they are Nashville. This is who we are.”

Rev. Darren Mayberry Wright, Pastor of Connections United Methodist Church in Donelson, a church located within the same ZIP code of the proposed National ICE Call Center, spoke sharing multiple examples from the Biblical scriptures of the call for people of faith and especially Christians, to welcome their neighbors, including immigrants. “Every Sunday, a beautiful thing happens where people from our community across different ages and walks of life come together and care for one another. Every time that happens, it is a reminder to me, as a Christian pastor and person of faith, that every single one of us is created in the image of God…and every single person is worthy of dignity. Years from now when people look back on this moment in Nashville, I hope they’ll say that we chose courage over fear, compassion over suspicion, and community over division.”

Background
ICE changes location of Tennessee call center site from Adams to Nashville: Tennessee Lookout, 8/20/26

Federal contract lists Nashville for planned ICE support center: The Tennessean, 8/20/26ICE to open national call center to find unaccompanied migrant children: Associated Press, 11/9/25
Nashville Leaders Speak out Against ICE Call Center: WKRN 2, 8/21/26

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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.