“After one year of implementing its immigration enforcement program, Davidson County will have processed more illegal immigrants than any other county east of Phoenix, Arizona. But right now, most illegal immigrants caught in Nashville have to take a thirteen-hour bus ride to Oakdale, Louisiana for their hearing at the expense of the taxpayers. Everything in Nashville is in place to start processing this alarming number of illegal immigrants except a judge, and I think it’s time for the federal government to recognize this and send an immigration judge to Davidson County.” – Lamar Alexander

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said that a hearing of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies that Davidson County needs its own immigration judge. Alexander also spoke privately with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey before the hearing about acquiring an immigration judge for Nashville.

“After one year of implementing its immigration enforcement program, Davidson County will have processed more illegal immigrants than any other county east of Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexander said to Attorney General Mukasey. “But right now, most illegal immigrants caught in Nashville have to take a thirteen-hour bus ride to Oakdale, Louisiana for their hearing at the expense of the taxpayers. What’s more is that those released on immigration bonds in Oakdale are released and have to find a way to get back to Nashville on their own. This usually means taking more than a twenty-hour bus ride back. It makes no sense at all to pay to send these individuals to Louisiana when there are 400 empty beds in Nashville that have already been approved by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Everything in Nashville is in place to start processing this alarming number of illegal immigrants except a judge, and I think it’s time for the federal government to recognize this and send an immigration judge to Davidson County.”

On March 24th, Senator Alexander and Representatives Blackburn and Cooper joined Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall and other local officials in Nashville to mark the one-year anniversary of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration enforcement program, known as the 287(g) program which was implemented on April 16, 2007. This program has targeted nearly 3,000 illegal immigrants for removal from Davidson County. The 287(g) program provides federal immigration enforcement training for Davidson County Sheriff’s Deputies, who are then able to check the immigration status of individuals being held in the county jail and initiate deportation proceedings if they are determined to be in the country illegally.

Currently, all persons processed under 287(g) in Nashville must report to Memphis or Oakdale, Louisiana, for an immigration hearing. Alexander said additional costs for this transportation out of Nashville could be avoided if a federal immigration judge were located in the city.

On March 6th, Senator Alexander and Representative Cooper sent a letter to Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), requesting the installation of an immigration judge in Nashville. Having an immigration judge in Nashville would expedite the process and ease the current logjam in the courts.

In January 2007, Davidson County became one of the nation’s first municipalities to be approved for participation in the 287(g) program. Final approval was granted during a meeting of Tennessee congressional lawmakers, federal officials and Davidson County law enforcement agents held in Alexander’s Washington office on January 31, 2007.

In the first year of implementation, Davidson County law enforcement has:

- Received valuable training and resources from ICE that empowered local officials to conduct immigration checks.
- Set approximately 3,000 illegal immigrants for removal.
- Davidson County has processed the largest numbers of cases for removal east of Arizona, more than any other county in a non-border state.
- Only four other counties in the country processed more illegal immigrants than Davidson County during their first year in the program.
- Removed nearly 50 gang members from the streets of Davidson County.
- Close to 700 – or nearly 25 percent – of the illegal immigrants processed have been arrested for at least one serious crime such as homicide, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary.