Big Push for Nashville Immigration Judge - Flint Adam

Courtrooms are backlogged, jails are full and more than two-million of your Federal tax dollars are being spent to house illegal aliens charged with crimes.

Davidson County authorities say it's because they're ill-equipped for a recent surge in arrests.

Davidson County authorities have arrested 35-hundred illegal immigrants on criminal chargers since early 2007.

The problem is those suspects must go to immigration hearings that are only available hours away.

Immigration attorney Sean Lewis and his clients know the waiting game.

"It takes me sometimes three weeks to get a bond hearing to get them before an immigration judge," Lewis says.

Your Federal tax dollars pay for their stay in Davidson County jails, and those same dollars pay for transportation to and from immigration hearings only available hours away.

The closest available is in Memphis - just over 200 miles from Nashville.
Some hearings are in Oakdale, Louisiana - 650 miles away.
Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall says, "I think it's much more cost effective to bring a judge to

Sheriff Hall says that's what he and some Tennessee politicians are working toward.

They've been lobbying for a local immigration judge for the past year.
Hall says progress is finally being made.

"The next sixty days there's going to be a study of doing it in a video conferencing way or a temporary judge assigned here before we go into the full blown judge - lets say - assigned to Nashville, which i still believe and hope we can get done afterwards."

The plan has the vote of local immigration advocate Yuri Cunza.
"It will help get through the cases - it's going to expedite things, it's going to save resources, it's going to save money and it's going to benefit families as well."

But the odds are tall.
There are only a few dozen immigration courts in the country, and the state of Tennessee already has one in Memphis.

Sean Lewis fears that may dissuade the Feds from bringing one to Davidson County - meaning long waits will continue for his clients.

"I don't see that they have the resources to just put two immigration courts in a state the size of Tennessee when you look at the way they spread their courts out."Big Push for Nashville Immigration Judge - Flint Adam