Immigrant communities in ‘crisis mode’ amid surge of ICE agents to Memphis, advocates say
- A surge of federal agencies in Memphis has led to mass traffic stops and detentions, creating a “crisis mode” for immigrant communities.
- Advocates report hundreds have been detained for immigration reasons since the “Memphis Safe Task Force” arrived in late September.
- Detainees are being sent to facilities in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, making them difficult to locate and contact.
The surge in federal agencies to Memphis has left immigrant communities in “crisis mode” as officials conduct mass traffic stops, local advocates said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the dozen agencies that make up the “Memphis Safe Task Force,” which began arriving in Memphis the week of Sept. 29. Since then, there have “probably been hundreds” of people detained for immigration-related reasons, said Casey Bryant, an immigration attorney and the executive director for Advocates for Immigrant Rights.
Recent court rulings have made it easier for immigration officials to stop or approach individuals for a wider variety of reasons.
Federal officials might trail behind a state trooper in an unmarked vehicle, Bryant said. In some cases, a state trooper will pull someone over and won’t get out of the car, and a federal official will approach the vehicle instead.
“They’re getting pulled over for dim headlights, they’re getting pulled over for paper tags…someone got pulled over for not having their headlights on in the aftermath of a rainstorm,” Bryant said.
Hunter Demster, a longtime local activist and co-founder of Vecindarios 901, an immigrant advocacy organization that fields calls from residents about ICE activity in Shelby County, said “Since this started, our hotline has not stopped.”
Federal officials are conducting mass pullovers, Demster said, empowered by a Sept. 8 Supreme Court decision. The decision temporarily overturned rulings from the lower courts that blocked ICE from making stops based only on race, language, location and occupation.
Finding detainees
Once someone is detained, it’s difficult to understand where they are, Demster said.
“There’s some really ambiguous questions on where they’re putting all these people,” he said. Demster said facilities have at times misspelled individual’s names, making it hard to find them.
Once a detainee is located, attorneys can’t set up a phone call with them until they’re fully booked into an ICE facility, Bryant said.
A longstanding legal precedent meant people who crossed the border without legal authorization were eligible to be released from detention on bond and fight their case from wherever they live, Bryant said. But a September 2025 case through the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals reversed that.
“People have to fight their case from detention,” Bryant said. “These are prisons. This isn’t just like a lodge where people stay while they wait for their case to be adjudicated; it’s a federal prison.”
That process can take years.
According to Demster, most of the detainees have been sent to the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason and the Madison County Detention Center for short-term stays. For long-term stays, detainees have been sent to Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi and the Central Louisiana Processing Center, Winn Correctional Center and Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana.
The increased presence of immigration agents has led some to “self-deport” to avoid the complicated process of fighting an immigration case, while others avoid leaving the house, said Mauricio Calvo, president and CEO of advocacy organization Latino Memphis.
“People don’t want to send the kids to school, people don’t want to work,” he said. “We’re in crisis mode…we don’t even know how to react.”