Illegal Immigrant Sentenced to 20 Years for Killing Nashville Restaurant Owner, ICE Files Detainer

Ulises Raigoza-Martinez pleaded guilty Wednesday, July 22, 2026, to murder and three other charges in the death of Matt Carney, a 42-year-old Nashville restaurant owner. A judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has now lodged a detainer against him, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The detainer asks Tennessee officials to notify ICE before Raigoza-Martinez is released from state custody, so federal agents can take him into custody and start removal proceedings. DHS says Raigoza-Martinez is a Mexican citizen who entered the United States illegally through Texas in 2021.

What happened at Smokin' Thighs

The killing happened June 19, 2024, in the parking lot of Smokin' Thighs, Carney's Nashville restaurant. Investigators say Raigoza-Martinez had stopped there to steal tools out of Carney's pickup truck.

When Carney went outside to confront him, Raigoza-Martinez sped off in his vehicle and struck Carney, according to authorities. Carney landed on the hood, then was thrown to the pavement when the vehicle turned, DHS said.

Carney suffered critical injuries and died at a Nashville hospital on July 4, 2024, ten days after the crash. Police arrested Raigoza-Martinez in South Nashville on July 18, 2024.

He eventually pleaded guilty to murder, theft over $10,000, tampering with evidence, and theft over $2,500. He was sentenced to 20 years.

The ICE detainer and what happens next

DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said Raigoza-Martinez "should NEVER have been in our country to commit this heinous murder," according to Fox News. Bis said DHS will work with Tennessee officials "to ensure that he is handed over to ICE custody once his sentence is complete, so that we can remove him from our country."

An ICE detainer is a request, not a court order. Whether it's honored depends on whether Tennessee corrections officials choose to notify federal agents ahead of his release, which is standard practice in Tennessee under current state policy. If they do, ICE will take custody and begin removal proceedings once the 20-year sentence, plus whatever time is served or reduced for good behavior, concludes.

That means the actual deportation, if it happens, is likely decades away barring parole, sentence reduction, or a change in custody arrangements. No timeline for an immigration hearing has been set, and none can be until Raigoza-Martinez is closer to release or otherwise transferred to federal custody.

The border-policy backdrop

DHS's framing ties this case to the timing of Raigoza-Martinez's illegal entry: 2021, during the Biden administration, a period when border crossings between ports of entry hit record highs, according to Customs and Border Protection data cited widely in immigration reporting. DHS's public statement doesn't establish whether Raigoza-Martinez had any prior contact with immigration authorities before the 2024 killing, and neither Fox News nor the New York Post's coverage indicates he had a prior deportation order or criminal record in the U.S. before this case.

Cases where a previously deported migrant reenters and commits a violent crime carry a different policy weight than a case where someone crossed once, was never apprehended, and then committed a crime years later. The available reporting suggests this is the latter: no prior removal order, no earlier ICE encounter mentioned.

Critics of stricter border policy will point out that the vast majority of people who cross illegally do not go on to commit violent crimes, and that using any single case to indict an entire immigration system risks distorting the data. DHS's own statement doesn't offer statistics on recidivism or violent crime rates among the broader population of unauthorized border crossers from that period.

But the specific facts of this case aren't in dispute. A man who was in the country illegally killed an American small business owner in the course of a theft, pleaded guilty, and is now sentenced to prison. Those are the facts DHS, the Tennessee court system, and both news outlets agree on.

What's unresolved

The open question is whether Tennessee's Department of Correction will actually honor the ICE detainer 20 years from now, or whatever point Raigoza-Martinez becomes eligible for release. State cooperation with ICE detainers has been a point of political friction nationally, though Tennessee has generally cooperated with federal immigration enforcement. Neither Fox News nor the New York Post reported any statement from Tennessee corrections officials confirming they will honor the request, only that DHS is seeking it.