President Donald Trump has promised “mass deportations” of immigrants without legal status. But who is actually at risk of being deported in the coming months? And how many of those immigrants are here in Nashville?
Immigrants to the U.S. are categorized by the federal government into statuses – some legal, some at risk of deportation. Here are some important categories to know, organized by their current risk of deportation.
Strongest legal protections
Davidson County has around 110,000 immigrants. That’s 15.5% of the population, twice as much as any other county in Tennessee. Of these immigrants, around two-thirds have some kind of legal status. These can be immigrants who became citizens, lawful permanent residents, or those with one of several kinds of temporary visas.
Naturalized citizens
To become a U.S. citizen, an immigrant must first obtain legal permanent residency, and then live in the country for a certain period of time — three years for those who obtained their status through marriage, and five years for everyone else.
Once they meet the residency requirement, immigrants need to take a citizenship test on American government and civics, as well as some basic English proficiency.
“They also have to be a person of good moral character, meaning basically certain crimes bar people from becoming a naturalized citizen,” said Doug Russo, managing partner and owner of Rose Immigration Law Firm.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey, 37.2% of Davidson County’s immigrant population has citizenship. That’s around 41,000 Nashvillians.
Permanent residents
Permanent residents, or green card holders, are allowed to live in the U.S. for as long as they wish, but lack some of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, like voting and serving on juries. Leaving the country for more than six months can jeopardize this status. Those with green cards can also be deported for committing certain crimes.
How do you get a green card?
“There are several different ways to become a permanent resident, but none of them are easy by any means,” said Russo.
Some of those ways include being sponsored by an employer, marrying a U.S. citizen or gaining approval after coming to the country as a refugee or asylum-seeker.
The federal government caps the number of new green cards available each year. That means wait times for permanent residency can be long, and immigrants need to find other temporary legal statuses in the meantime.
“Some categories (of green card applications) have backlogs of 10 or 20 or even close to 30 years,” Russo said.
Work Visas
Before permanent residency or citizenship, many immigrants establish a temporary legal status through employment.
Common types of work visas include the H-1B, which is given to immigrants who’ve been hired in jobs that require a college degree, especially in science and technology. The visa lasts for up to three years, and can then be renewed for another three. H-1B recipients often start by attending college in the U.S. on a student visa.
The H-1B process is competitive — Russo says between 200,000 and 600,000 people apply each year for just 85,000 slots. Those who aren’t selected can choose a shorter-term legal status.
Other types of work visas include H-2A visas for seasonal agricultural workers and H-2B visas for other seasonal labor. Like H-1B visas, there are more employers interested in hiring these workers than there are slots.
Employers of people with work visas can sponsor their employees for permanent residency, but the process is arduous. People only allowed in the country temporarily often can’t wait for the years-long green card process to run its course.
Anjelica Rubin WPLN News The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) celebrates World Refugee Day in 2023. In January 2025, President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program indefinitely.
Refugees
Refugees are immigrants fleeing violence, persecution or natural disasters. They are vetted by the U.S. government before arriving, often with the help of international non-governmental organizations like the U.N. High Council on Refugees (UNHCR).
Refugees have a path to permanent residency. They must apply for a green card upon entering the U.S. and can stay until they receive one.
As of 2019, Nashville had 11,208 refugee residents, according to data from the U.S. State Department. They’ve come from all over the world, with the largest numbers from Myanmar, Somalia and Iraq.
On Jan. 20, the president suspended the U.S. refugee program. Refugees who were already processed have had their travel plans canceled.
Shakier legal ground
Asylum seekers
Similar to refugees, asylum seekers come to the U.S. because they fear for their lives in their home country. But unlike refugees, asylum seekers are not approved ahead of time. They must prove their asylum case once they arrive.
Some of these immigrants make their asylum claim as soon as they reach the border or a port of entry. Others come to the U.S. with a different temporary status but claim asylum when circumstances in their home country change. Russo brought up one of his clients as an example.
“We represented a student from Afghanistan who was here in the United States lawfully,” he said. “When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, there was no way she could go back because she was an educated woman who was a professional and had been working in Afghanistan. And if she returned to Afghanistan, she would likely be, at a minimum, beaten, if not killed.”
Asylum seekers often face long wait times — years, or even decades, before making their case in court. While waiting, some obtain work permits and are employed.
“They’ve started a life here,” Russo says.
If a court rules in their favor, asylum seekers have a path to permanent residency. If not, they can be deported.
Temporary protected status (TPS)
Sometimes the U.S. government will grant temporary legal status to immigrants from countries facing wars or volatile political situations. But usually, these immigrants need to already be on American soil when the crisis breaks out, or arrive within a short time. For example, Ukrainians could get Temporary Protected Status, but only if they arrived in the first 18 month of the Russian invasion.
“It’s usually dumb luck,” Russo said. “Some of the Ukrainians that we helped were literally here in the US on vacation, and they got stuck.”
Because TPS is temporary, recipients eventually need to apply for another legal status, such as asylum.
The future of TPS is uncertain. On Jan. 20, President Trump announced he would end Humanitarian Parole, a similar program, for immigrants fleeing Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.
Highest risk of deportation
Tony Gonzalez WPLN NewsUndocumented immigrants represent at least 12% of construction workers in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.
Undocumented immigrants
These include people who entered the U.S. legally and overstayed their visas, or people who entered without declaring themselves to the government.
According to a 2019 estimate by the Migration Policy Institute, Davidson County has at least 33,000 undocumented immigrants. Around 80% of them come from Mexico or Central America.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that around 40% of farm workers are undocumented immigrants. A 2017 study from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 12% of construction workers are undocumented.
“They might not qualify for asylum, but they still want to find a better life somewhere else and, you know, identify America as that potential opportunity,” Russo said. “There’s no easy American Dream Visa where, ‘I dream to be an American. I want to contribute to society. I’ve always dreamed of this land of opportunity.’ There’s really not an option that’s that easy without either having a family member, an employer, or a lot of money.”
One group of undocumented immigrants is those who were brought here as children and received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections during the Obama administration. President Trump has expressed interest in continuing the program, but in 2017 he tried to end it.
Trump says his “mass deportations” will prioritize undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but his administration says it considers everyone who entered the country illegally to be a criminal. That would include everyone who crossed the U.S. border without declaring themselves. However, the ACLU says that 45% of undocumented people came legally on temporary visas and overstayed.
Helena Harris is a student at Harpeth Hall who contributed research to this report while job shadowing with WPLN News.
UPDATE: This story has been updated to include the Trump administration’s stance on what constitutes a “criminal” undocumented immigrant.
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