Cover Story

Know Your Rights

BY AMANDA HAGGARD | PHOTOS BY ALVINE

Since President Donald Trump assumed office on Jan. 20, 2025, he’s ramped up immigration arrests, attempted to end birthright citizenship and announced an order to expand the right of the federal government to deploy local and state law enforcement to help them enforce immigration laws.

In response to these developments, the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) has intensified its efforts to inform and protect immigrant communities and empower their allies. Since 2003, TIRRC has existed in Nashville as a network of community leaders that act as a diverse coalition that works on legislative advocacy, communications, education, community organizing and building power through people.

The most recent barrage of policy assaults from the Trump administration has shifted TIRRC toward in-person and virtual Know Your Rights events, focused on ensuring immigrants and their allies understand their rights with police and immigration enforcement. The information is meant to equip attendees with vital information on how to navigate encounters with law enforcement, protect their communities, and push back against government

overreach. TIRRC’s team answered a few questions about how Nashvillians can best understand their own rights and what it means to Know Your Rights.

Why is it important for everyone in our community to understand the rights of immigrants, even if they are not personally affected?

It is important for everyone to understand these rights because these are rights that we all have regardless of immigration status. These are not special rights, and they were put into the United States Constitution by the framers. Protecting individuals from government overreach was one of the main reasons why the Bill of Rights was written in the first place, and invoking these rights can keep our communities safe and help uphold democracy.

Immigrant rights are human rights. It’s easy to think “I’m not an immigrant; this doesn’t affect me,” but that’s exactly how authoritarianism creeps in. It targets group by group, and divides and conquers. Today it is immigrants, but tomorrow it will be another group. We all need to stand in solidarity to preserve all of our rights now rather than wait and hope that we can acquiesce enough to avoid conflict.

What rights do you have when interacting with law enforcement or immigration authorities, and how can knowing them help protect you and those around you? What's the most important thing you'd stress here?

You have the right to remain silent and the right to speak to an attorney. In immigration proceedings, you are not assigned an attorney, but you have the right to speak to one that you can find to represent you. Additionally, generally ICE needs a judicial warrant (a warrant signed by a judge) or your consent to enter your home.

However, the most important thing to remember is that each individual needs to assess their situation and make decisions based on keeping themselves safe. We can tell you your rights, but we can also acknowledge that law enforcement and immigration officials often abuse their power.

How can attending a Know Your Rights event help you support friends, neighbors, or coworkers who may face challenges with immigration policies or enforcement?

Attending a KYR event can help you support your community because you can share the information with them.

You can also help them assert those rights if you are with them when they are approached by enforcement. The more we all assert these rights, the more we can protect them and uphold democracy.

What should you do if you witness an immigration-related raid or a rights violation in your community?

You have the right to record. It is usually advisable to announce that you are doing so. This is also individual risk-dependent. If you are recording, do it in a way that you are not in law enforcement’s way.

You should also alert TIRRC’s resource line at (615) 414-1030. Although we cannot respond to all ICE activity, it is helpful to the community that someone is keeping track of what’s going on.

What are some common misconceptions about immigration rights, and how can attending this event help you become better informed and challenge misinformation?

The biggest misconception is that the United States immigration system is workable. People always say, “just do it the right way,” but there is no right way when the system is fundamentally outdated. The laws were written in a time before globalization really took off, and the systems and numerical limits written into the statutes are not reflective of the world we live in. Many of our immigration options have decade-plus long wait times, and oftentimes options don’t exist even for people who have lived in the United States for years or have loved ones who are U.S. citizens. On top of that, the government regularly misses its own deadlines, allows individual officers to make unchecked decisions, and contradicts their own guidance. People outside of the immigration space imagine that applying for immigration status is an orderly and rational process, but that is a far cry from the truth.

A newer misconception that our government is actively pushing is the criminalization narrative. Immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than non-immigrants, and the current fear-mongering tactic overly focuses on the individuals who have done bad things rather than looking at the actual statistics. The goal is to create division and mistrust because they know that we are stronger together.