Tennessee Ran a Human-Trafficking Sting. Three of the Five Arrested Had Been Released Into the Country by the Biden Administration.
Over two days in June, undercover agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Human Trafficking Unit worked a hotel in Hendersonville, a Sumner County suburb northeast of Nashville. When the operation closed on June 12, 2026, five men had been charged and nine people had been identified as possible trafficking victims.
The TBI announced the arrests on June 20. A month later, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement added a fact the state release did not carry: three of the five are Cuban nationals whom the federal government encountered at the border and then released into the interior of the United States.
None of the five has been convicted of anything. All are presumed innocent. But how three of them came to be in Middle Tennessee at all is not an allegation — it is a documented sequence of federal decisions.
- 3 of 5 men charged in the Sumner County operation were, according to ICE, encountered at the border and released into the United States under Biden-era policy — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- 9 individuals identified as possible trafficking victims during the two-day operation and offered services through Thistle Farms — Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
- ~2 million noncitizens released into the country with Notices to Appear since January 20, 2021 — the policy backdrop to all three releases — House Homeland Security Committee, June 27, 2024
The TBI’s Human Trafficking Unit, which operates under Director David B. Rausch, ran the undercover operation on June 11 and 12, 2026 with local law-enforcement partners. According to the bureau, nine individuals encountered during those two days were identified as possible trafficking victims and offered services through Thistle Farms, a Nashville nonprofit; the anti-trafficking groups Skull Games and Our Rescue also assisted. The TBI made the arrests public on June 20.
JUST ANNOUNCED: 5 men were arrested following a joint human trafficking operation in Sumner County. To read more about this investigation:
Three men were charged with promoting prostitution: Bryan Duany Rodriguez-Pena, 27, of Cape Coral, Florida, held on an $80,000 bond; Alinson Guerrero-Ramirez, 27, of La Vergne, Tennessee, on $60,000; and Lazaro Dario Rodriguez-Santos, 32, of Miami, on $82,000. Two more men — both U.S. persons — were charged with child-exploitation offenses carrying far higher bonds. All five cases are pending in the 18th Judicial District, which covers Sumner County. No one has entered a plea that has been reported publicly, and every charge described here is an allegation.
5 charged after Middle Tennessee human trafficking investigation
ICE published its own release in mid-July 2026, and Nashville outlets picked it up on July 14. The agency laid out how each of the three Cuban nationals entered the country. Border Patrol encountered Rodriguez-Pena on June 5, 2021, in a group of eleven people who had illegally crossed the Rio Grande; he was released into the interior. Agents encountered Rodriguez-Santos near Yuma, Arizona, in November 2021 after an unlawful entry; he, too, was released into the interior. Guerrero-Ramirez arrived later, in 2023, at the Brownsville, Texas port of entry, where he was issued a Notice to Appear and paroled under the catch-and-release practice then in force.
“All three criminal illegal aliens were encountered and released into the United States under the Biden administration's border policies.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement · news release, July 2026
ICE has lodged civil immigration detainers against all three. A detainer is an administrative request that a jail hold someone briefly so the agency can take custody — not a criminal charge, and not a federal case. The prosecutions themselves belong entirely to Tennessee, in a county courthouse, under state law.
“Human trafficking is a cruel crime that exploits vulnerable people for profit.”
David J. Venturella · Acting Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
The two 2021 encounters and the 2023 parole all happened on the watch of President Joe Biden (D) and then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (D). The scale is documented. The House Homeland Security Committee reported in June 2024 that DHS granted 58,730 paroles in fiscal 2021; in fiscal 2022, Border Patrol paroled 378,235 people and another 178,465 were paroled at ports of entry. Parole peaked in December 2022, when it accounted for 89 percent of encounters. Roughly two million people were released into the country with Notices to Appear after January 20, 2021.
A separate parole track drew the sharpest federal criticism, though it is not the one that admitted these three men. The Government Accountability Office found in report GAO-26-107433 that DHS paroled roughly 774,000 noncitizens under the CHNV and Uniting for Ukraine programs between May 2022 and September 2024, and suspended both in July 2024 over security and fraud risks in supporter vetting — including more than 1,400 applicants who listed deceased U.S. citizens as their sponsors. DHS terminated CHNV in March 2025 and issued termination notices on June 12, 2025. CHNV did not exist when Rodriguez-Pena and Rodriguez-Santos were released in 2021, and no source identifies any of the three as a CHNV parolee.
The evil of human trafficking cannot be overstated. By leaving our borders open and even encouraging people to come here illegally, the Biden administration enabled the largest human-trafficking operation in modern history.
Tennessee’s congressional delegation objected at the time. On December 20, 2022 — the same month parole hit its peak — Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) jointly demanded that the Biden administration reverse a plan to release ICE detainees into their state. Three and a half years later, ICE is the agency documenting who ended up where.
The other two defendants are U.S. persons, and their charges are the most serious in the case. Kasim Barnes, 45, of Gallatin — a sworn Gallatin Police Department officer at the time of the operation — faces six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor by electronic means and one count of solicitation of a minor to commit aggravated statutory rape, with bond set at $1,000,000. Gallatin Police Chief Bill Bandy fired him effective June 15, 2026. Christopher Steven Torres, 27, of Hendersonville, faces four counts of exploitation of a minor by electronic means on a $750,000 bond.
No actual child was contacted. According to local reporting on the operation, the minor-related counts arose from an undercover deputy who posed as a 17-year-old on an adult-oriented website. That undercover persona is entirely separate from the nine individuals identified as possible trafficking victims. The TBI never disclosed their ages, and this piece does not characterize them.
There is no local political story here, and manufacturing one would be dishonest. Gallatin, Hendersonville, Sumner County, and Tennessee state government are all Republican-run. The police department that employed Barnes fired him within days of his arrest, and the state bureau that ran the sting is the reason he was arrested at all. The accountability question this case raises is not about a city council or a district attorney — local institutions here worked. It is about the three federal decisions, made at the border years earlier, that put the other three defendants in Middle Tennessee to begin with.
The five prosecutions proceed in Sumner County. The detainers sit with ICE, now led by Acting Director David J. Venturella, who took the post on June 1, 2026, under Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), confirmed 54–45 in March 2026. Whether the three Cuban nationals are removed after their state cases resolve is an open administrative question, not a settled fact.
The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven't been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out…
Tennessee investigators did their job: a two-day sting, five men charged, nine possible victims offered help, and a police officer fired within days. What the state could not control is who was standing in Sumner County to be arrested. Three of the five were encountered at the border by federal agents — twice in 2021, once in 2023 — and released into the country each time. The charges are unproven. The releases are not.
