Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled up to a home in Hermitage Monday morning, planning to take a man who lives there into custody. But the man's neighbors ran them off.

Neighbors say the man and his son were in a van parked in their driveway, with a white pickup truck driven by an ICE agent parked behind them, blocking them in. Soon more than a dozen neighbors were gathered outside the home, along with immigrant rights advocates, as the man and his son sat in their van, beginning a standoff that lasted several hours. The scene was witnessed by multiple community members who were streaming it live on Facebook.

According to witnesses, shortly after 10 a.m. the ICE agents, as well as Metro Nashville Police Department officers who were also on the scene, got in their vehicles and left the neighborhood. At that point, witnesses tell the Scene, the neighbors formed a human chain through which the man and his son could walk from the van back into their home.

The remarkable scene is largely the result of the unusual legal ground upon which ICE carries out its activities. The agents did not come with a warrant signed by a judge, the way local police officers would if they were coming to arrest someone on criminal charges.

“They were here with an administrative order that they wrote themselves," says Daniel Yoon, an attorney who was on the scene for the majority of the standoff. "There’s no judicial review, no magistrate review, no probable cause. It doesn’t give them the authority to break down a door like you would with a normal warrant. They didn’t try to do that. But they still lied to the individuals inside and to people on the scene about, ‘No, this does give us that authority.’”

Yoon says immigrant rights advocates on the scene stood outside the van assuring the man that he did not have to listen to the ICE agents' commands to exit the vehicle. As the hours passed, witnesses say, neighbors brought food and water to the man and his son and also put more gas in the van so they could keep it running.

Angela Glass, who lives across the street, tells the Scene that one of her neighbors told her to come outside after seeing the ICE agents and police vehicles. She says they were not going to let ICE take their neighbor away.

“These people, they’ve been living there for 14 years," Glass says. "They don’t bother anybody. Our kids play with their kids. It’s just one big community. And we don’t want to see anything happen to them. They’re good people. They’ve been here 14 years, leave them alone. To me, they’re considered Americans.”

Another neighbor who'd been on the scene all morning could be overheard saying, “They came to the wrong community on the wrong day.”

Asked to clarify why MNPD officers were on the scene and what their role was, MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron sent this statement:

An ICE representative telephoned the Emergency Communications Center at 7:19 a.m. He relayed that ICE attempted to stop a white Ford van, the driver would not stop, but did proceed to a driveway on Forest Ridge Drive. The caller said the driver was sitting in the van and was not getting out. He requested the police department’s assistance, but did not specify what he wanted the police department to do. When the police arrived, they learned that ICE was attempting to serve a detainer only on the individual. The man was sitting in the van with a 12-year-old boy. The officers were instructed to not be involved in the service of the detainer, but to stand by from a distance to keep the peace if necessary. ICE ultimately left while the man was still in the van. The police left accordingly.

At-Large Metro Councilmember Bob Mendes says he had gone to vote this morning when he started receiving text messages and seeing Facebook posts about the ongoing situation. When he arrived on the scene, he says he spoke to an MNPD officer who told him that they'd been called to the scene by ICE after the standoff had already begun.

“There was quite a period of time where it seemed like this was just going to go on all day long with really nothing happening,” Mendes says.

Mendes was there as neighbors brought food, water and gas to the van. He says he did see the MNPD officers communicate with the ICE agents several times, but that the conversations seemed cursory.

“It appeared to be MNPD guys trying to get information about what ICE’s intentions were,” he says.

Mendes says that, while he was there, "the two Metro police officers were very professional and appeared to execute MNPD's policy more or less exactly the way it's drawn up."

Immigrant rights advocates on the scene were beginning to try to convince the MNPD officers to leave, Mendes says, and had begun to lobby him to get involved as well when the standoff abruptly ended.

“I had just been approached about trying to reach out to MNPD supervisors to discuss that topic, and they all up and left,” he says.

Asked what he made of the situation from his perspective as a Metro councilmember, and what he believed should happen going forward — given the near-certainty that the threat of ICE activity will continue to loom over Nashville communities — Mendes says federal immigration enforcement puts cities in "very difficult positions."

“From the position of the person sitting in the car, the van, who was maybe going to be detained or not be detained, I’m 100 percent sure that they had to have perceived that MNPD was there in support of ICE," Mendes says. "They left at the same time, they’re marked police cars with uniformed, armed officers. So, from the people in the van’s perspective, surely it seems that MNPD was involved or coordinated or something.”

He goes on: “But just because this was a peaceful incident doesn’t mean that 100 percent of ICE-versus-the-community is going to be peaceful. And the idea of having MNPD not actively involved in the detaining — and they weren’t there at the beginning of the situation, ICE didn’t call them to help detain the guy — they called after, apparently, I’m told, after a crowd started gathering. The idea of having a couple of police officers around, that’s not crazy. So, what’s the city, what’s MNPD supposed to do? Just let a crowd of people and two ICE agents gather on a street with none of our law enforcement anywhere nearby? But on the other hand, like I started with, I’m sure from the perspective of the people in the house and the car, I’m sure it looked like MNPD was there in support in some capacity. I don’t know if I have a right answer for that.”

Update (July 23): Mayor David Briley released the following statement on the attempted ICE arrest:

Every Nashville resident and family deserves to feel safe, regardless of immigration status. My statement on yesterday’s events: pic.twitter.com/1t7QYACZyM — David Briley (@DavidBriley) July 23, 2019



