Far-left Democratic Mayor Freddie O’Connell of Nashville, Tennessee, has endangered the lives of federal immigration agents.
The mayor released the names of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators, the Department of Homeland Security says, thus endangering not only their enforcement operations but also their lives and the lives of their families.
O’Connell is already the target of an investigation by two U.S. House committees at the request of GOP Representative Andy Ogles, whose district includes part of the city.
O’Connell Versus ICE
As The New American reported on Tuesday, the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees will investigate what Ogles called O’Connell’s “aiding and abetting” illegal-alien criminals.
The probe follows O’Connell’s response to the apprehension of 196 illegals in the city, 95 of whom “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.
Swept up in the dragnet were a rapist and an MS-13 terror-gang associate wanted for murder in El Salvador.
Pursuant to the raid, O’Connell concocted an executive order that required city officials, notably cops, to report any communication or interaction with ICE directly to the mayor’s office within 24 hours. Ogles wrote to the committee bosses, Judiciary’s Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Homeland Security’s Mark Green (R-Tenn), to demand a probe of the mayor’s subversive activities.
O’Connell’s 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.
On Monday, Ogles posted on X that he would 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” nongovernmental organizations related to “the arrest or detention of criminal illegal aliens within the city or county.”
But being the target of a federal investigation apparently doesn’t faze O’Connell. If helping illegal-alien criminals avoid arrest is a crime, well, that’s a risk he’s willing to take.
Names Released, Agents in Danger
Indeed, O’Connell raised his bet and released the names of agents involved in immigration enforcement. Unclear is whether the doxing was a move for “transparency,” as Fox 17 in Nashville reported, citing O’Connell, or a mistake, as Department of Homeland Security Spokesman Tricia McLaughlin told Newsmax. Either way, the names are public … thanks to O’Connell.
It looks like Mayor O’Connell was involved in some sort of obstruction or the harboring of criminal illegal aliens in the great city of Nashville. But also just last night, his office put out the names of Homeland Security investigators and doxed our ICE enforcement officers.
They claimed it was a mistake. There’s zero chance it was a mistake, and there will be repercussions. Our ICE enforcement officers are already facing a 400-percent increase in assaults against them. And he’s essentially handing over intelligence to these criminal gangs so that they can target our ICE enforcement officials. It’s wrong and it’s beneath the city of Nashville, and I hope he will face consequences.
Speaking at an impromptu presser outside the White House, border czar Tom Homan explained that doxing the names of agents endangers their lives. He said that “action” on the doxing was forthcoming.
Homan told reporters:
Assaults against ICE officers are high, the doxing of ICE officers [is] at an all time high, and people always complain. Some of you here say, “Why are they wearing masks?” They’re trying to protect themselves and their families.
They’ve got a dangerous job to do and are being doxed every day across this country. I’ve experienced [it] myself a hundred times. I’m willing to take that because of the position I hold . … We’re not running a popularity contest. We’re trying to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and do it in a smart, effective way.
Assault on ICE agents “won’t be tolerated,” he said. Thugs who attack them will be “prosecuted to the highest extents of the law.”
“We’re not playing with any threats to these ICE officers,” he said. “Doxing … we’re going to take action on that also.”
Arrest Ahead?
That isn’t Homan’s first warning about interfering with ICE agents. But if O’Connell wants to know what lies ahead legally, he might google “U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver.”
The far-left New Jersey Democrat faces two felony charges under 18 U.S. Code 111, for “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees” during a melee at an ICE detention center in New Jersey.
Trying to protect Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from arrest for trespassing, McIver “slammed her forearm into the body of … a uniformed [Homeland Security Investigations] agent” then “tried to restrain [the agent] by forcibly grabbing him,” the federal criminal complaint says. Not content with that assault, she “pushed [another] ICE officer … and used each of her forearms to forcibly strike” him.
Along with obstruction, as McLaughlin suggested, O’Connell might also face other charges. His order might lead city employees to violate 8 U.S. Code 1373, which criminalizes withholding information from federal immigration authorities:
A federal, state, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from [federal authorities] information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.
O’Connell might also be charged with harboring illegals.
