The U.S. House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees will investigate Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell for what GOP Representative Andy Ogles called his “aiding and abetting” illegal rapists, murderers, and other criminals to avoid arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ogles announced the investigation today, a week after he wrote to committee chieftains Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Green of Tennessee. Ogles wrote because of O’Connell’s executive order requiring city cops, firefighters, and others to report all involvement with federal immigration authorities.
Like other city officials, O’Connell just might make himself and his city the target of federal lawsuits.
The Order
O’Connell’s pro-illegal-alien order requires underlings to hand over all “communications between federal immigration authorities (or their parent agency, if regarding immigration) and a Metro emergency services department (Police, Fire, Emergency Management, or Emergency Communications).”
The order requires the same of non-emergency responders in the same department. The communications must be submitted “within one business day to the Mayor’s Office of New Americans at [email protected] and [email protected].”
O’Connell’s subversive order raises “serious questions about whether [he] is now obstructing federal law enforcement and possibly even actively aiding and abetting illegal aliens,” Ogles wrote to Jordan and Green.
After ICE recently collared almost 200 illegals in the city, including a child molester and possible member of the Tren de Aragua terror gang, “O’Connell issued an executive order instructing city agencies to track and report all interactions with federal immigration authorities,” Ogles wrote:
Rather than commend law enforcement for removing dangerous individuals from the streets, the mayor chose instead to signal that federal agents are to be surveilled and distrusted — not supported.
This executive order is not a transparency initiative. It is already being operationalized as a political weapon. Just days after the mayor’s announcement, the city’s Community Review Board posted on X urging residents who have “experienced or witnessed an immigration-related event” to call a city-monitored hotline and file a complaint — a move clearly designed to mobilize left-wing activists to monitor and interfere with immigration enforcement.
Let’s be clear: when city resources are used to obstruct federal officers and shield unlawful entrants — including convicted predators and violent offenders — from the consequences of violating immigration law, that conduct crosses a line. If any municipal personnel are impeding removals, facilitating evasion, or interfering with ICE operations, such conduct is at best inappropriate and may be illegal.
Investigation Announced
On Monday, Ogles wrote on X that he will request “all documents and communications from the Mayor’s office” related to O’Connell’s order, internal discussions about ICE, and correspondence between city employees and “affiliated” non-governmental organizations related to “the arrest or detention of criminal illegal aliens within the city or county.”
Thus did the investigation of the mayor begin.
Speaking at a news conference, Ogles said O’Connell is allied “with rapists, drug traffickers, sexual predators, child traffickers, the list goes on…. I will always stand on the rule of law, and with ICE. I don’t just stand with ICE, I’ll stand in front of ICE because, ‘We the People’ have had enough.”
O’Connell might well be “aiding and abetting illegal immigration,” Ogles said. The two committees will investigate to find out whether O’Connell used federal tax money in a “criminal enterprise.”
O’Connell: We Won’t Help
Far-left O’Connell, yet another Democrat who appears to have overdosed on soy, wrote his insurrectionary order after ICE and state troopers conducted an immigration enforcement operation. O’Connell whined that “people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm.”
Responding to O’Connell on X, the Department of Homeland Security posted photos of several of the 196 dangerous illegal-alien goons caught in the traffic dragnet.
Among them were the following individuals who jumped the border only to enrich the culture of American ignoramuses and do the jobs they won’t do:
- Salvadoran Inmar Antonio Penado-Membreno, 34, with convictions for assault and drug-dealing;
- Salvadoran Franklin Oswaldo Velasquez, 33, an MS-13 terror gang associate, and wanted for murder in El Salvador. His criminal career includes drug convictions;
- Haitian Richard St. Baptiste, 36, a methamphetamine dealer;
- Guatemalan Carlos Reinaldo Alvarado-Rodriguez, 39, a thug with a conviction for aggravated assault;
- Iraqi Jassim Jafaf Al-Raash, 60, a rapist and thief who received a deportation order in 2001 — 24 years ago.
“Despite the success of this enforcement operation, the Nashville Mayor has claimed these operations were done by ‘people who do not share our values of safety,’” DHS wrote.
Of the 196, “95 had prior criminal convictions and pending criminal charges, while 31 were previously removed individuals who reentered the United States illegally, a felony offense under federal law,” ICE reported.
Activist Obstruction
The New York Times helpfully revealed today that “activists” in Nashville were obstructing the enforcement of immigration law.
“Nashville residents and immigration advocacy groups are now acting as unofficial chroniclers of immigration activity. Among them is The ReMIX Tennessee, which set up a hotline for community members to call in and report any sign of immigration enforcement, the newspaper reported:
On social media, they also circulate warnings about where the Tennessee Highway Patrol and ICE agents have been spotted together. State troopers can make routine traffic stops. Immigration officers legally cannot without probable cause or a warrant, but together, it meant traffic stops could end in immigration arrests.
Aside from filing possible obstruction charges against those “residents and immigration advocacy groups,” the Justice Department might well sue the city. Since the January 20, DOJ has sued Colorado, New York and New York City, and Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County.
