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Detention cells, interrogation rooms in Cedar Bluff

by Frank Cagle

The question comes down to this: How did the feds locate a detention facility in West Knoxville, and no one knows about it?

The building sits in an office park in West Knoxville, off Executive Park Drive at the Cedar Bluff exit. It looks like one of the chiropractors’ or doctors’ offices that line the street. Except there is no sign on the door and no listing in the phone book. It is the Knoxville headquarters of a quick-response team of agents under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

Officially, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has Tennessee offices only in Memphis and Nashville. Officially, it’s now called Immigration Customs Enforcement—ICE. But the agency also has offices in Knoxville and Chattanooga, and to say they have a low profile is to put it mildly. Any questions locally get referred to a public information office in New Orleans.

From a variety of sources, some of them local law enforcement, this is what I understand to be the case.

The old INS has had some agents in Knoxville for a half-dozen years, working out of the Knox County Sheriff’s office facility on Central Avenue (the former Sears building). With the formation of the new Homeland Security Department in March 2003, there was a new agency, flush with cash, and the agents began the move to the new facility in West Knoxville.

The building has holding cells and interrogation rooms, but officials vigorously deny that it is a jail. Suspects are processed and questioned, then farmed out to local jails under contract to the feds. Federal regulations forbid keeping suspects overnight. Suspects are eventually transferred to New Orleans, where they have hearings before an immigration administrative law judge; then, if warranted, they are deported.

The agency is in the process of building similar facilities in every region of the country. One of the reasons for the low-profile office in Knoxville is that a similar facility in Chattanooga caused a neighborhood uproar. There was a building permit request for an INS office. It sounded rather benign, but Councilman Jack Benson wanted to know why the feds were building an office in an expensive part of the suburbs rather than downtown near the jail.

Further investigation and a look at the plans revealed detention cells and a weapons room. Benson called Congressman Zach Wamp, and the lid blew off. Wamp demanded a Government Accounting Office explanation and a public hearing. The Brainerd Road site was near a residential area, a daycare center, a church and a school. The facility has been moved to a commercial/manufacturing area. That the office in Knoxville was opened in total anonymity is astounding when you consider that a new taco stand usually requires a public hearing.

If federal authorities pay lip service to local planning regulations, it is merely a courtesy, according to Dave Hill, Knoxville COO and also still director of the Metropolitan Planning Commission. Federal law supercedes state and local in these matters. He said MPC has no record of any such facility. The city does have a building permit for the site in the name of Curtis Investments. Curtis Investments is a Dallas-based firm that is building the ICE facility in Chattanooga. Evidently, in Knoxville, they did not make the mistake of using the INS on the permit.

In addition to the INS office in Nashville, a quick response team facility is reportedly located in Brentwood, a posh suburb south of town. Anyone see a pattern here? New agency. Lots of money. Offices in Brentwood, East Brainerd and Cedar Bluff? Upscale offices in upscale neighborhoods, miles away from the county jail?

When I showed up on Prosperity Drive last week, I was escorted past the firmly locked door in the vestibule to a conference room. My questions were referred to New Orleans, and my request for a tour was declined. Gary Slaybaugh, the agent in charge, said anyone requesting a visa or citizenship services needs to contact the offices in Nashville or Memphis.

The ICE agents in Knoxville are not involved in rounding up farm workers or run-of-the-mill illegal aliens. They are concerned with dangerous illegal aliens who have violated U.S. law.

With the formation of the new Department of Homeland Security, ICE has become the second-largest investigative agency of the U.S. government. It has 20,000 agents. Within the past year they have deported 52,000 criminals and 40,000 illegal immigrants who are not criminals.

So we have a new agency, with 20,000 agents, building detention facilities in upscale neighborhoods all over the country. And nobody knows about it?

Frank Cagle is a political analyst and the host of Sound Off on WIVK FM107.7, WNOX AM990, FM99.1 and FM99.3 each Sunday 8-9:30 a.m. The program is pre-empted this week by Sports Soundoff, coverage of the Vols versus Georgia football game.

October 7, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 41 © 2004 Metro Pulse