Metro Nashville estimated it will take nearly a month to produce records related to $1.5 million in grants awarded to two immigration-focused nonprofits, which raises serious transparency concerns, according to The Tennessee Star’s lead reporter, Tom Pappert, who said that the city appears to be funding political allies of Mayor Freddie O’Connell while slow-walking efforts to obtain documents justifying the spending.
During an appearance on Wednesday on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert discussed Metro’s response to a Tennessee Public Records Act request by The Star seeking records related to grants awarded to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON) in the fiscal year 2027 budget approved earlier this month.
Pappert said the grants raise concerns because one of the organizations receiving funding previously supported O’Connell politically.
“Mayor Freddie O’Connell is the one who pitched in his budget $1.5 million for two nonprofits, including $735,000 for a nonprofit called the Tennessee Immigrant Refugee Rights Coalition, whose political arm, TIRRC Votes, endorsed him in 2023,” Pappert said. “The city is quite literally giving $735,000 to a political ally of Mayor Freddie O’Connell. That’s just the fact.”
Pappert detailed how questions emerged after the mayor’s office told The Star that grant funds would not be used for legal representation, advocacy, or similar services for illegal immigrants.
“This began with the mayor’s office claiming to us that this grant, this proposed grant for TIRRC specifically, the $735,000, was going to have controls placed on it by the mayor’s office, that it would not be used for advocacy, legal representation, or other similar expenses for illegal aliens in the United States of America,” Pappert said.
Pappert explained that The Star sought documents showing how the nonprofits justified the requested funding.
“And so we wanted this document…We wanted to know what the nonprofits gave to Metro Nashville to justify this proposed $1.5 million in spending for both of them,” he said.
However, Pappert said information provided by Metro Clerk Austin Kyle suggested the grants may simply continue an existing program originally funded through federal pandemic relief dollars.
“And what we learned from the Metro Nashville clerk, Austin Kyle, was that they didn’t apparently give anything new in 2026 to justify the spending for 2027, because this all goes back to the agreement signed between Metro and these two pro-illegal alien nonprofits all the way back in 2022, which, by the way, that was Biden-era federal tax dollars paying for that, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” Pappert said.
“And what Austin Kyle, the Metro clerk, told us was that this new grant appropriation in 2027 would be the same program, but a different funding source,” he added.
Pappert argued that the existing contracts indicate the funding supports legal services for immigrants facing deportation proceedings.
“The problem with that is if you go and you look at what is actually public about those 2022 contracts, they were specifically paying for TIRRC and Tennessee Justice For Our Neighbors to represent illegal aliens, protect them from deportation,” Pappert said.
“In fact, taxpayers have hired, essentially, new lawyers at both of these organizations. They have lawyers working at these nonprofits who would not have their salary paid for if not for this money,” he added.
Metro informed The Star that records responsive to the request are expected to be available on July 10.
“The city’s estimate, and this is an estimate, we can’t hold them to it because they use that word, they estimate they will have the documents we have requested on July 10th of this year,” Pappert said.
“So that will be…28 days total since we filed the request on June 12. That’s before the vote, and it will be 18 business days if we are very kind, and we note that Juneteenth and Independence Day, July 4, will both happen during this period,” he added.
Pappert also suggested the records produced may not fully answer questions about compliance with state law governing grants to nonprofit organizations.
When asked whether further legal action may be necessary, Pappert said, “I would say no, but it could be a slightly different matter of litigation because, of course, Metro has claimed that they don’t need to produce these reports. They don’t need to get the information from the nonprofit.”
“So we could find ourselves in a situation where they give us something, but it is not what is covered in the statute, and we still don’t have the answers we’re looking for, at which point…legal [consideration] may become necessary,” he added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
It should take less than a week to produce those documents and this is nothing but a stall tactic by Metro.