Knox Cops Deputized To Act On Behalf of ICE, But They Don’t Want To Talk About It

Image Credit: Knox County Sheriff’s Office / Facebook

The Tennessee Conservative Staff –

The Knox County Sheriff’s Office continues to refuse to release records pertaining to their participation in a program geared towards immigration enforcement, despite a judge’s orders to do so.

The Department was ordered to release the records when University of Tennessee at Knoxville professor Meghan Conley won a records request case four years ago. Conley was researching the federal 287(g) immigration enforcement program. When she finally received documents from the department, the information pertaining to the program was missing.

After her original request in 2017, Knox County officials said under oath that the requested documents did not exist. Those documents include communication from federal authorities to former Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones. However, it has since been discovered that those documents do, in fact, exist.

Chancellor John Weaver found that the Sheriff’s Department avoided sharing the documents by intentionally creating months of delays and attempting to charge excessive fees, as they continued to claim that the records did not exist.

Weaver ordered the department to create a system that would allow easier access for state residents and also said they could not charge for public records. 

“If there is no reasonable way for the public to access the public records, the public cannot use them to oversee governmental activities,” Weaver wrote.

Knox County became one of only 62 local law enforcement agencies in the country to participate in the 287(g) program in 2017. The program deputizes officers in order to allow them to act on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, giving them the power to interrogate individuals who are suspected of lying about immigration status. In exchange, the federal government provides the agency with funding and trainings.

It was found, however, that the Sheriff’s office did not follow the law when implementing the program. State law requires that they obtain the approval of the Knox County Commission, but they did not do so.

Interestingly, Tennessee state-level legislation that would have allowed local law enforcement to enforce federal law and arrest anyone transporting, harboring, or facilitating the transport of illegal aliens into Tennessee failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee after former Republican Chairman Mike Bell and Senators Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga-District 10) and John Stevens (R-Huntington-District 24) voted against it back in 2022.