Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell has publicly defended his office’s decision to release the names of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, calling the move a mistake but emphasizing greater concerns about ICE officers concealing their identities. The Democratic mayor of Tennessee’s largest city, who has been accused of obstructing federal immigration efforts, defended his office’s decision to publicly dox the names of immigration officers, stating that the release of names was unintentional and that the issue is more about the overall dynamic of unmarked, unidentifiable masked people whisking people into vehicles.
O’Connell’s defense came even after the names of federal immigration officials were removed from a public immigration report detailing a month’s worth of immigration-related interactions between local police and federal immigration authorities. Initially, the public report detailed immigration officers’ names, but following backlash over the move, the names were taken down. O’Connell stated,