The Tennessee General Assembly has passed nearly a dozen bills to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportations at the state level.
The brainchild of Tennessee Republicans and U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, the legislative package focuses on ramping up local immigration enforcement, restricting the driving privileges and professional licenses of those without legal status and collecting more data on the state’s undocumented population.
Miller has had conversations with other red states about legislation to bolster the president’s immigration crackdowns, but only a few, like Tennessee and Oklahoma, have been open about the collaboration.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, did not confirm who initiated the early conversations. In an email to WPLN News, the White House did not acknowledge a question about the origins of the partnership, but Tennessee lawmakers have tried to position themselves as the White House’s pilot state.
“I can assure you this is not about scoring political points, and I can assure you that Speaker Sexton led in engaging in those conversations,” Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Knoxville, said in defense of one part of the package on the House floor.
Tennessee has been a leader in the number of immigration bills passed this year. Several measures passed just under the wire Thursday night as the state wrapped its 114th General Assembly.
Here’s what the policies do.
Mandatory ICE partnership
While Democratic states like New Mexico and Maryland have banned local law enforcement from partnering with ICE, Tennessee is joining a few GOP-led states in mandating that sheriffs sign a formal agreement with the federal government.
The once voluntary 287(g) program deputizes local officers to act as ICE agents, either by verifying the legal status of those already in their custody, serving warrants on ICE’s behalf, or making immigration-related arrests themselves.
Nationwide, the number of 287(g) agreements has grown exponentially compared to Trump’s first term. In Tennessee, over half of the state’s 95 counties have signed onto 287(g) in the past year.
Only two counties were enrolled before Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s 2025 omnibus immigration law, which, among other things, created $5 million in incentives for local law enforcement to partner with ICE. That money is still on the table despite the mandate.
Florida, Georgia and Texas have similar laws, but the latter two have holdouts. In Georgia, only a third of the state’s sheriffs have signed on. Some sheriffs applied but couldn’t participate because they don’t have the staff or funding. Dallas, Houston and Austin have yet to sign an agreement, along with a swathe of counties in the western portion of Texas.
Florida, on the other hand, has an ICE partnership in every county. While its law doesn’t necessarily require a 287(g) agreement, the governor and attorney general have interpreted a state ban on “sanctuary cities” to mean any local government that doesn’t partner with ICE.
Tennessee has long had a sanctuary city ban on the books, prohibiting local governments from adopting policies that would shield people from immigration enforcement. But only this year have Republicans likened not partnering with ICE to being a sanctuary city.
Sexton, along with national Republicans, have accused Nashville of being a sanctuary city because its mayor decried a series of ICE raids in its immigrant corridor last May.
“Nashville is saying, ‘we’re not working with ICE,” Sexton said. “They’re using their ability not to have to work with the federal government … (to) turn a blind eye.”
Nashville once had a 287(g) agreement, but the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office ended it after a pregnant woman spent several hours in labor while shackled in its jail under the program.
Sheriffs that don’t comply could lose funding under the legislation, which takes effect in 2027.
Tracking undocumented students, patients
Two measures aimed at tracking the state’s undocumented population passed — but were watered down from what Republicans originally proposed.
Before conversations with Miller, Tennessee Republicans wanted to challenge Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the right to an education for all students, regardless of immigration status. A 2025 measure to allow schools to reject students who couldn’t prove legal status passed the state Senate and had momentum to succeed in the House, but it was pulled over concerns it would jeopardize more than $1 billion in education funding.
Since Tennessee has a two-year legislative session, lawmakers were able to bring the bill back. This time, it morphed into a tracking bill to determine how many students in the state’s public schools don’t have legal status.
That bill advanced alongside another from the Miller package that would’ve required schools, hospitals and police to report undocumented students and patients. That bill became one of the lone failures of the package, but parts of it lived on in a measure to deny local government benefits to people unable to prove legal status. State and local aid agencies — like affordable housing providers and public health clinics — will have to verify their beneficiaries’ legal status and report the number of people without legal status who may use their services.
Democrats in the House opposed the bill over concerns it would discourage immigrants from seeking routine medical care and potentially open local governments up to lawsuits over racial profiling.
English-only on the roads
Driver’s tests will only be administered in English in Tennessee with a temporary exception for new arrivals. That change came after the Japanese Consulate took issue with the bill, warning it would jeopardize 60,000 jobs and $21 billion that Japanese investors have put into Tennessee facilities.
Drivers who can’t take the written portion of the test in English will be issued a limited license with an 11 p.m. curfew. Drivers would only be allowed to drive to and from work, school, doctor’s appointments or religious gatherings.
Tennessee also moved to mirror a Trump executive order from earlier this year, banning undocumented drivers from operating commercial vehicles and requiring truck drivers — regardless of immigration status — to speak “sufficient English” to communicate with the public and read road signs. Tennessee’s law would come with criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hire someone who is undocumented.
Work verification
Tennesseans would need to prove legal status to work as nurses, electricians, teachers or government employees under a pair of measures. They would require documentation to obtain professional licenses, like a cosmetology or nursing license and require local governments and schools to use e-Verify to check the immigration status of their employees. While most local governments already use e-Verify, this would the attorney general the power to investigate and withhold funding from municipalities and school systems that don’t comply.
Criminalizing civil immigration offenses
Like Florida, Tennessee has moved to criminalize unlawful immigration, something that is usually a civil offense. Remaining in the state after a final deportation order has been issued would amount to a Class A misdemeanor with nearly a year of jail time. Immigrant advocates warn that a final deportation order is not the last say in an immigration case.
The measure, signed by the governor, contains a “trigger law” that would give the state greater immigration enforcement power if the court case establishing immigration as a federal issue is ever overturned — similar to the way the state’s abortion ban went into effect after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Courts complying with ICE
Judges in all courts, including civil and circuit, would be required to cooperate with ICE or face removal under part of the package, which has a built-in expiration date of February 2029.
Rep. Gabby Salinas, D-Memphis, warned the bill could worsen domestic violence in situations where one part of the couple is an immigrant.
“It’s already hard for someone to make the choice to seek help and to try to get out of a domestic violence situation,” Salinas told WPLN News. “We’ve seen U.S. citizens — people that have all the right documentation — get taken into detention.”
Democrats have argued that the attorney general already has the authority to investigate judges who resist immigration enforcement.
The measure, like many others passed in the flurry of the last few days of session, now heads to the governor’s desk for his signature.
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