The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office announced that efforts led by the governor and state lawmakers successfully halted a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plan to release illegal immigrants, including convicted criminals, into the state.

State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti revealed on Wednesday that after the office filed a lawsuit, ICE was compelled to provide previously undisclosed information regarding its plan to release thousands of detained illegal immigrants, including those convicted of crimes.

The attorney general’s office obtained hundreds of pages of documents that shed light on the now-abandoned federal plan to transport potentially thousands of “single adult” detainees into Tennessee. This revelation stemmed from a 2022 discovery by the governor’s office, which learned that ICE had been coordinating with local immigration-rights groups and officials in Nashville to facilitate the release of large numbers of detainees into the state, coinciding with the anticipated termination of the federal government’s Title 42 public health order.

“The federal government’s single most important job is to keep dangerous people out of our country, and instead it has let killers and rapists illegally cross our border and walk free on our streets,” Skrmetti said in a statement.

According to the records, ICE’s plan to release illegal immigrants into Tennessee was successfully blocked after pushback from Republican Gov. Bill Lee, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and Sen. Bill Hagerty, alongside litigation from the attorney general’s office.

Despite the victory, the documents also revealed that ICE still released over 7,000 detainees directly from its Louisiana facilities at that time, including more than 30 individuals classified under ICE’s highest security-threat level. Many of these detainees had criminal records that included offenses such as murder, sexual assault, armed robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and fraud.

“While the urgent work to fix our broken immigration system continues in Washington, my office will keep fighting for transparency and accountability,” Skrmetti added.

This news comes after the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday that it has recommended placing over 100 illegal immigrants with suspected ties to a violent Venezuelan gang on an FBI watchlist. The agency flagged more than 600 individuals in total but emphasized that not all would be confirmed as gang members, as some may be relatives, victims, or witnesses of crimes committed by the notorious gang.

ICE has not yet responded to request for comment.