NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton is urging Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell to rescind a recent executive order that mandates city emergency personnel report all interactions with federal immigration officials within 24 hours.
Sexton criticized the order on Thursday via the social media platform X, accusing the mayor of overreach and undermining cooperation with federal agencies.
“While Metro has refused to assist federal agents with ICE, they decided to escalate it by forcing all employees to act as big brother,” Sexton wrote. “The time is now to rescind the big brother executive order and return to normal communications with state and federal authorities.”
In his post, Sexton tagged U.S. Representative Mark Green, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The speaker’s remarks are the latest in a series of Republican-led rebukes of O’Connell, a Democrat who governs Tennessee’s largest city and the capital of the GOP-dominated state legislature.
Tensions escalated last week when U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles accused O’Connell of obstructing federal immigration enforcement, referencing the mayor’s opposition to a recent sweep that resulted in nearly 200 detentions in predominantly immigrant neighborhoods in early May.
Following Ogles’ Memorial Day press conference, several Trump administration officials appeared on conservative media outlets to criticize the mayor. Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, now referred to as the White House’s “border czar,” told Fox News the city could face intensified federal immigration enforcement in response to O’Connell’s public comments.
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, went further during a Newsmax appearance, accusing O’Connell of “harboring” undocumented immigrants and exposing federal agents by name. That segment was also posted on the department’s official X account.
Adding to the pressure, two Republican-led House committees—Judiciary and Homeland Security—launched an investigation into O’Connell’s handling of federal immigration actions. In a letter dated last Thursday, lawmakers requested documents related to the executive order and the city’s response by June 12, claiming the mayor’s actions could “chill immigration enforcement in the City of Nashville and Davidson County.”
The criticism centers on O’Connell’s executive order, originally issued before his term and amended in May. The updated directive requires emergency and certain non-emergency city departments to report any contact with immigration authorities to the Mayor’s Office of New and Indigenous Americans, a department created to support civic engagement in immigrant communities.
A spreadsheet summarizing these encounters was posted on the department’s website. Initial versions included the full names of three federal agents and the first name of another—details the mayor’s office later called inadvertent.
“It is not the normal practice to include the names of individuals in EO30 reporting. Any names mistakenly included have been removed,” a statement from the mayor’s office said last week.
Mayor O’Connell has defended the order as a measure to uphold community trust.
“What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm,” he said during the initial backlash to the federal enforcement sweep. “Their approach is not our understanding of what a Nashville for all of us looks like.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Sexton’s remarks.
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