U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger on Wednesday denied the request by the pro-illegal alien nonprofit, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), to issue an injunction blocking the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a request filed the same day as its May lawsuit, which alleges a series of ongoing constitutional violations during traffic stops involving THP and ICE, and the risk that TIRRC would be subjected to similar stops in the future, the nonprofit asked Trauger to file an injunction forbidding troopers from working with federal immigration agents to detain motorists for immigration investigations, using traffic stops to enforce immigration law, or using race or ethnicity when determining which motorists to stop.
Explaining her decision to deny the request for an injunction in her Wednesday memorandum, the appointee of former President Bill Clinton was harshest on TIRRC’s Fourth Amendment claims, though its 14th Amendment claims fared better.
Trauger called the nonprofit’s claim that lawful traffic stops could violate the Fourth Amendment if troopers initiate them to start immigration investigations a “novel theory” that “is not grounded in legal precedent.”
As a result, the judge wrote that TIRRC “simply has not shown as a matter of law that its members’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable seizure is implicated by the pretextual stops.”
The federal judge was more receptive to TIRRC’s 14th Amendment theory, rejecting Tennessee’s argument that the ultimate detention decisions were made by federal officers as irrelevant to TIRRC’s claim that troopers were directed to target motorists based on ethnicity.
Trauger specifically said the evidence “though not robust, is nonetheless sufficient to establish some likelihood of success on the merits.”
She also said that much of the evidence submitted by TIRRC related to the May 2025 joint immigration enforcement operation in Nashville conducted by THP and ICE, while the Memphis Safe Task Force (MSTF) is a multi-agency operation created at the directive of President Donald Trump.
Trauger ultimately found the two operations sufficiently different that the Nashville evidence was “not sufficiently connected to the Memphis Task Force to be particularly relevant,” and thus provided only a “weak showing” of evidence supporting their claim that MSTF stops were motivated by discriminatory intent.
The judge’s decision comes after ICE announced that 120 law enforcement agencies have entered into 287(g) agreements, allowing state or local police to perform certain immigration tasks. Since President Donald Trump began his second term in the White House, ICE said more than 1,300 illegal aliens have been arrested by 287(g) partners in Tennessee.
Earlier this year, Governor Bill Lee signed legislation requiring Tennessee sheriff’s offices to enter into a 287(g) agreement by January 2027. Sheriffs who refuse could see their offices lose state funding.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
