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Carlos Ochoa is a Latino Memphian. He has lived in Memphis, Tennessee, for over a decade. And for a large portion of that time, he’s worked to protect immigrant rights in the city. He’s the media correspondent for Vecindarios 901, a volunteer-based coalition rapidly responding to the fear and chaos Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee has brought to the Memphis community since he invited the National Guard in, as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
According to Ochoa, people are afraid to drive to work or take their children to school. It’s not just immigrants who are afraid.
“The state troopers are conducting these mass dragnets on our city. They are pulling people over for pretextual stops. They might say, ‘Well, we thought you weren’t wearing your seatbelt and so we’re pulling you over,’” says Ochoa, who noted other unwarranted reasons working-class Memphians have been arrested. “We’re not really seeing these kinds of tactics play out in more affluent neighborhoods. We’re seeing them happen in working-class family neighborhoods.”
Ochoa explains that while people in his community are taking the threat against immigrants seriously and responding accordingly, the lack of state support and historic murders against people protesting state violence mean the situation in Memphis is much different compared to cities with more liberal state representatives.
“People need to understand that Memphis is a place of resistance, but our situation makes it really difficult. If you look at Martin Luther King Jr., for example, organizing and fighting for freedom can cost your life. And so that’s part of the calculus of people here. Memphis also has a long history of police violence, and so showing up to protests or confronting law enforcement agents or confronting federal agents can mean losing your life here.”
However, that isn’t keeping people from organizing and addressing the resource and safety gaps these contracts are creating.
Together, the Memphis Safe Task Force, a multi-agency partnership established via an executive order by President Donald Trump last year, “to combat violent crime in the city, 287(g) contracts, which grant local officers special federal authority to investigate any undocumented person, and Republican state leaders are working to create a hostile environment for immigrants.
Federal law enforcement agents are are seen on Beale Street, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (Photo by George Walker IV / AP)
Three organizations, Vecindarios 901 (V901), Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), and Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), are fighting back. All of them are immigrant rights organizations with different methods and the same goal: to protect Memphian immigrants. The organizations are network-based groups offering resources and some type of direct service for local immigrants.
While some elected officials in more liberal cities and states like Mayor Jacob Frey in Minneapolis and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are denouncing ICE presence in their communities, the landscape in Memphis, Tennessee, is very different, where many local and state officials are actively working with and in support of ICE presence. (Editor’s note: There are a handful of electeds in Tennessee who’ve filed a suit against Governor Lee’s deployment of the National Guard, according to reporting from Tennessee Lookout.)
More people are starting to bear witness to the kinds of cruelty of the federal government against all working class communities across the country. And people are really starting to want to become more involved.
Ten states now have statewide policies prohibiting law enforcement officers from cooperating in one of the primary programs Trump is using to carry out his mass deportation agenda. In February, Maryland passed a law prohibiting local and state law enforcement agencies from entering into civil immigration enforcement agreements with the federal government. The new law also requires agencies to terminate existing immigration enforcement agreements on or before July 1, 2026. Jurisdictions in the state have had 287g agreements in place for 18 years. According to The Associated Press, Frederick County in Maryland has turned over 1,884 people to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2008. This will no longer be the case.
And in California, municipal and county governments have set aside public money to help immigrants and rapid response networks build legal defenses, amid increased immigration crackdowns.
However, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee requested the Memphis Safe Task Force, which the White House announced in September 2025. The task force is made up of the National Guard and 30 other local, state, and federal agencies across the state. It claims to be “hypervigilant policing” to rid the city of criminal activity.
The task force has introduced new agreements called 287(g) contracts, which were signed into law on November 4, 2025. It’s part of a federal program from the 90s that has been granted new perks under the current administration: financial incentives for the counties that agree to it.
While these agreements have been around for decades, there has been a 916% increase in counties joining the federal program since January 2025. According to the ACLU, the Trump administration is quietly using the 287(g) program to turn local police and sheriff’s departments into arms of its deportation machine. These agreements claim to offer protection from violent criminals. However, the reality is that nearly 60% of the people ICE detained in Tennessee last year had no convictions.
Since Memphians aren’t able to rely on their state officials to protect their immigrant communities, they are doing the work themselves. On December 12, 2025, MICAH gathered community members and met with Shelby County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Floyd Bonner Jr. to discuss the 287(g) contracts in hopes of having him terminate them.
After meeting with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, MICAH held a press conference and rose demonstration, where each rose represents each immigrant in Memphis and one bouquet represents a separated family. (Photo Courtesy MICAH)
And TIRRC has been working to respond quickly to the new crisis created by the 287(g) agreements. One of its methods has been to address the staggeringly low attendance that began happening across schools in Shelby County and beyond in Memphis. It created a Bus Expansion Campaign to push the Memphis school board to create more busing options for students, as growing deportation fears led to plummeting attendance in Memphis.
This campaign culminated in a resolution unanimously passed by the school board in October 2025, according to Chalkbeat. Iris Mercado from TIRRC explained that while the resolution has passed, the school system is still working on putting the additional bus services into effect. In the meantime, TIRRC has organized car pooling services through mutual aid efforts with interested neighbors.
MICAH, Vecindarios 901, and TIRRC gathered together to start a petition demanding the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department cease the 287(g) contracts and they presented it at a December 2025 meeting with the department. According to Gisela Guerrero and Erika Alegria, two organizers with MICAH, Bonner is the one with the power to dissolve the current 287(g) contract that is plaguing Memphis. Alegria, who attended the meeting, shared that the Chief Deputy made it clear he would not be terminating the agreements.
Alegria and Guerrero, two Memphian Latina women, explained that Sheriff Bonner and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department have spent the last few years building trust and care with the Latino community across Memphis.
However, the Latino Memphis community cannot support the sheriff and these contracts, given the safety risk they have brought to their community.
Alegria says Bonner confirmed during the meeting that he has the authority to sign the contract or end the contract. However, the financial incentives, which are a new addition to these agreements presented by the current administration, are keeping him from doing so. Sheriff Bonner confirmed that the department had received $4 million as part of the 287(g) agreement, according to Alegria. Next City reached out to Sheriff Bonner’s office for comment, but received no response.
This program allows ICE to exist within this community without visibility. For V901, which offers a rapid response hotline number that Tennesseans who might be targeted can call, this makes its work much harder.
According to Ochoa, V901’s media manager, the 287(g) agreements between ICE and counties across Tennessee have escalated not only ICE’s power but also its presence in the city.
The largest bulk of the organization’s work is related to its volunteer-trained observers who, when they are on call, get notifications of ICE-related activity and dispatch to the notified area. Once they arrive at the site, volunteers exercise their First Amendment rights to observe federal agents within the Memphis community.
While Vecindarios has been around for a few years, its work and presence as an immigrants’ rights coalition have ramped up over the last 12 months.
“I think more people are starting to bear witness to the kinds of cruelty of the federal government against all working class communities across the country. And people are really starting to want to become more involved,” says Ochoa.
