When President Trump announced an anti-crime task force for Memphis last fall, federal and local officials never mentioned immigration enforcement as a goal.

But the influx of federal agents into the city has led to widespread immigration arrests — a majority without criminal convictions, according to an Institute for Public Service Reporting data analysis.

NPR reviewed arrest data and spoke with lawyers, immigrants, activists and community members to piece together the task force's impact on Memphis over the past 10 months. 

It found paralyzed immigrant neighborhoods, where scenes played out reminiscent of Chicago and Minneapolis at the height of targeted federal immigration enforcement actions. Aid networks ramped up their work to help immigrants too fearful to leave their homes. Hotlines rang out with calls from panicked immigrants. And routine traffic stops led to immigration arrests.

"All roads lead to immigration enforcement with this administration," says Chioma Chukwu, executive director at American Oversight, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog that has been investigating the Trump administration's use of multi-agency task forces like the ones in Memphis and Washington, D.C.

She says one of the aspects her organization is tracking is the way in which the administration has consistently conflated illegal immigration with crime, to help in what she calls "mission creep," particularly in places where anti-crime rhetoric might be more popular. .

"This administration has used crime as a pretext for furthering and advancing its immigration enforcement agenda because they understand that immigration may not be top of mind in maybe non-border states in the way that it is in border states," says Chukwu.

Trump launched the task force last fall, along with Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite crime being at a 25-year low in the city. For nearly a year, more than a dozen federal agencies as well as hundreds of Tennessee National Guard members have been working closely with local and state law enforcement.

In Memphis, an 'anti-crime' task force quietly turned into an ICE crackdown - NPR