No different than just about every would-be Tennessee politician who runs as a Republican, Reeves claimed to be a “conservative” and opposed to illegal immigration.
In fact, Reeves goes further on the illegal immigration issue as posted on his “Reeves State Senate” website, claiming that he is “fighting to stop illegal immigration in Tennessee.” https://www.reevesfortn.com/the-issues/
A worthy question for his voting constituents would be: how does sponsoring and passing legislation rewarding people who don’t have lawful immigration status (meaning they are illegal aliens under the controlling federal law as determined by Congress) with state issued commercial and professional licenses, help stop illegal immigration in Tennessee?
Worse yet, it sounds like Reeves knew that the Obama DACA beneficiaries who were the main target of his bill, have absolutely none, zero, nada, lawful immigration status. On the Senate floor, Reeves was asked whether people covered by his bill are here illegally. Not surprisingly, he side-stepped the question but admitted that the bill “does not change anyone’s immigration status”.
Then he pulled out the open border advocates’ favorite feint to the left to help confuse his colleagues and said that DACA recipients are “lawfully present”. Even the Biden administration has admitted that “lawful presence” for DACA recipients does not give them any lawful immigration status.
Almost a full year before Reeves decided to reward illegal aliens living in and/or arriving to Tennessee, a federal district court in Texas in a 70+ page, detailed opinion, ruled that the Obama DACA program was procedurally and substantively invalid and violates federal immigration law. After the ruling was affirmed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Biden’s Dept. of Homeland Security issued a new rule on DACA.
The new rule was reported by the Center for Immigration Studies to be almost identical to the original Obama administration rule. More importantly, the new Biden rule stated unequivocally that lawful presence (used by Reeves to confuse his colleagues), is only a specialized term of art distinct from lawful status, that DACA recipients only have a temporary two-year grant of deferred deportation, remain inadmissible illegal aliens subject to removal, and are not considered lawfully present under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). From page 16 of the new Biden administration rule for DACA:
a noncitizen who has been granted deferred action is considered “lawfully present”—a specialized term of art that does not in any way confer “lawful status” or authorization to remain in the United States https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2022-18401.pdf
Maybe he thought his constituents wouldn’t appreciate his campaign platform flip-flop? For sure though the NFIB (small business lobby) which lobbied this bill along with the TN Chamber of Commerce was probably thrilled that he fulfilled his commitment to them.
The secret no-parents-need-to-know-or-consent vaccine bill for minors
Given that Reeves apparently wasn’t concerned about transparency with his own bill, it didn’t stop him from voting for not one, but two bills which taken together, authorized dentists and other licensed healthcare providers to administer the HPV vaccine to minors without parental knowledge or consent. Once the intent of these bills became known (and the likely negative public reaction), bill sponsor Sen. Bill Powers added consent from the parent or legal guardian to his bill before a dentist could administer the vaccine.
Both bills were recommended for passage and scheduling to go to the Senate floor but never made it because they were both taken off notice in the House.
Both Briggs and Powers were co-sponsors of Reeves’ licenses for illegal aliens bill and Reeves as a member of the Senate Health Committee voted for both HPV bills.
During this last legislative session Reeves sponsored a bill to enlarge the scope of practice of pharmacists like himself. The bill, SB869, would essentially let pharmacists stand in place of a physician for purposes of prescribing certain types of medications if the pharmacist decides the person needs it.
Included in the expanded list constituting the “practice of pharmacy”, are “[a]gents for active immunization when prescribed for susceptible individuals who are six (6) years of age or older for the protection from communicable disease”.
Since the HPV bills were never passed, is it possible that Reeves’ expanded pharmacy practice bill is the new back door to make this happen? The bill is still pending in the Senate Health & Welfare Committee where Reeves serves as (the gender neutral) 2nd vice-chairperson.
Is this really the type of representation voters of District 14 want or deserve?
Several university chapters of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization have this week, publicly voiced unwavering support for Hamas and for the barbaric murdering of Israeli civilians, butchering of families, decapitating babies, the elderly and the taking of hostages which include young children.
SJP’s co-founder, Hatem Bazian came as a college student to the U.S. from the Hamas stronghold of Nablus in the West Bank. He brought his Islamic Jew-hatred with him and created the SJP campus hate group. Across U.S. campuses, SJP’s chapters activities and actions, along with the group’s DNA as pictured below, make the group ineligible for chartering as a campus student organization.
And yet, campus administrations, too many of which have failed to condemn the SJP-supported Hamas murdering of civilians, and too many of which ignore the antisemitism on their campuses, willingly look the other way and let these Jew-hating groups operate with administration support.
In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that Vanderbilt University had a SJP chapter launched by Hytham Al-Hindi, who, as a Vanderbilt Ingram Scholar would have his undergraduate degree tuition fully paid for.
In exchange for the $160,000 plus in free education, Vanderbilt was going to get its own Jew-hating, HAMAS- connected Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) student organization, started by Al-Hindi.
Who was Hytham Al-Hindi and what are his motives to align with SJP?
Hytham Al-Hindi hailed from Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father, Dr. Ahmad Al-Hindi is a cardiologist who graduated from Jordan University of Science & Technology in northern Jordan, the country presumed to be where Dr. Al-Hindi immigrated from to the U.S.
In 2008, about 3.5 million people in Jordan were believed to be of Palestinian ancestry. Is Dr. Al-Hindi’s ancestry Palestinian? Does Dr. Al-Hindi have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan? Is he an anti-Israel sympathizer? Does he have political views that may have influenced his son?
Hytham Al-Hindi’s Ingram Scholars bio documents his high engagement with the immigrant and refugee populations in Nashville. He volunteered with the refugee resettlement agency NICE (Nashville International Center for Empowerment), that was started by a former refugee turned government contractor “entrepeneur.” (Remember this when the propagandists tell you how great it is that refugees come and start businesses.)
Hytham’s facebook page looked like the who’s who of Muslim Brotherhood organizations. His listed “favorites” included:
Since he was starting an SJP chapter at Vanderbilt, it’s no surprise that he also listed as “favorites” some of the most aggressive and virulent leftist anti-Israel and Jew-hating individuals and organizations that promote the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel). After all, demonization and delegitimization of Israel along with promoting BDS is the core belief of SJP:
Angela Davis – former Black Panther party member and Communist
Noam Chomsky – “America is worse than Nazi Germany”
Rachel Corrie Foundation
Jewish Voice for Peace – listed by the Anti-Defamation League as one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in the U.S. and an aggressive promoter of BDS
SJP Loyola
Loyola Divest
NU Divest (Northwestern University Divest) – its student government passed a divest Israel resolution by two votes
The end goal of the BDS campaign is to eliminate the State of Israel since its existence is hateful to Hamas, Iran and other Arab countries that chosen to support Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism. When pro-BDS and pro-Hamas agitators chant “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” they are saying that their vision is that there will be no Israel between the Jordan River and Mediterranean—and no Jews – it’s Judenrein.
SJP emulates the language and values of HAMAS. For this reason and because of the extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred displayed by the chapter members, SJP is more accurately labeled “Hamas on Campus.”
SJP chapters on college campuses sponsor events like “Israel Apartheid Week,” disrupt pro-Israel events, and are the primary agitators pushing anti-Israel BDS resolutions introduced to student governments. SJP chapters have created hostile and intimidating campus environments for Jewish students. SJP prides itself on bringing conflict and divisiveness to college campuses along with using a well-financed disinformation campaign that spreads their hatred towards Jews and Israel.
They are all Muslim majority countries, some of which promote hatred of Jews and Israel. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader who died last year at age 96, supported Palestinian suicide bombings, was based in Qatar. Saudi Arabia follows the strictest form of sharia law which prohibits Jews from being citizens. Iran is behind the recent Hamas massacre of Israelis and supplies Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon with weapons so they can attack Israelis and Jews.
So, what ideology do these students bring with them? Do they gravitate more to student groups like the MSA, SJP and the Middle Eastern Students Association? Homegrown in Waverly, Tennessee, Samar Ali co-founded the Middle Eastern Students Association at Vanderbilt because as she said, “I will always be Arab and I will always be American and I will always be Muslim….My parents always taught us to never forget where we came from and to never forget where we are now.” This sounds eerily similar to the motives behind the anti-Israel work of her father’s Jerusalem Fund organization here, here and here for example.
Vanderbilt and every campus that has an SJP chapter must ask itself whether a group tied to HAMAS, a U.S. designated terrorist organization, can be chartered under any school’s rules for student organizations. Can public money be allowed to flow to these groups? Should private money be permitted to enable these groups?
In true leftist-progressive fashion, Vanderbilt made Christian campus groups unwelcome by enforcing the zero tolerance all-comers’ policy. While the SJP chapter at Vanderbilt quietly faded away, if some form of it reemerges with the administration’s support, will Jews at Vanderbilt be the next group to have to leave?
In an April interview, titled “America has a God, Not a Gun Problem” Tennessee General Assembly House member Joe Towns, a Democrat from Memphis, sounds like he either hasn’t read or doesn’t agree with the ideological talking points being used by the Justins and other members of the House Democrat Caucus when it comes to what they call “gun violence”.
As the interview moves along from the expulsion of the two Justins, Rep. Towns says:
“Those issues that they’re talking about everybody’s concerned with those issues. Truly people don’t know what the hell to do. Folks don’t know how to stop people and it’s not necessarily guns that’s doing the hurt and the harm in our community. What you have in this country is a heart problem.”
Towns says the “heart problem” is about hate and all the terrible things that come from it.
Regarding violent crime in Memphis, Rep.Towns believes that “most of the killing is being done by children today, 13, 16, 18, 20” and refers to “recent statistics that show that most violent crime is being committed by juveniles.”
And he again emphasizes that “it’s not just one thing, it’s not just guns”.
Rep.Joe Towns (D-Memphis)
In the case of Nikki Goeser’s murdered husband, it was a person with mental illness.
During Thursday’s floor session, Majority Leader William Lamberth, sponsor of HB7003, explained that his bill would allow for lifetime orders of protection from felons convicted of violent crimes which would now include aggravated stalking.
Lamberth referenced Nikki Goeser’s situation to explain why his bill should become law.
While in prison, the man who murdered Nikki’s husband Ben, continued to stalk her by writing letters from prison and yet, earned an early prison release because of “good behavior credits”. In July, he received an additional sentence in federal court for stalking, tacking on an additional year of prison time.
Rep. Carringer (R-Knoxville) stood to voice support for Lamberth’s bill while also thanking Nikki who is her constituent, for her efforts with bills like HB7003.
Rep. Joe Towns also stood in support of Nikki and passionately described his disgust about what happened to her and her husband. Towns said he knew Nikki and worked with her at the capitol where she was on staff; he clearly thought highly of her and his sincerity about what happened to her should not be questioned.
Towns described seeing Nikki’s “broken-heartedness after her husband was murdered” and as he continued, he became visibly worked up, saying it is:
…unconscionable, unthinkable to have to deal with a sap-sucker harassing you after something like that. What I think is happening today is you’re saving two lives because in some situations in neighborhoods, if you’re stalking my sister or my mother you won’t need the police – okay, because there are some of us that would so something to you about messing with our families. So you savin’ two lives by doing this [bill]. You can take that anyway you want to I don’t care how you take it. I’m just letting you know what the facts are okay with me and mine. Don’t mess with me and mine….it’s unconscionable and unpardonable to terrorize a woman after you murder somebody in their family. The police are slow there are some people who’ll get to you before the police get to you…
Rep. Towns sounded like he was in favor of using “street justice” which The Free Dictionary defines as “the punishment given by members of the public to people regarded as criminals or wrongdoers”.
To know the race-hustling, anti-white and Jew-hating fellow travelers in Jones’ inner circle, puts his appropriation of Jesus in a context more in line with how a failed divinity student takes the divinity out of Christ to serve a personal and twisted political agenda.
For starters, the fact is, Jesus Christ was a Jew.
Jesus was not a “Palestinian,” as there was no Palestine during his time. It wasn’t until one hundred years later, in AD 134, that the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea after the Bar Kokhba revolt and renamed the region Palestine. The Romans had plucked this name from the Bible as a taunt to the Jews they were expelling — it was the name of the Israelites’ ancient enemies, the Philistines, who had disappeared from history centuries before. Never did the term “Palestinian” refer to anything but a region — not to a people or an ethnicity.
To call Jesus a “Palestinian” is, of course, to identify him with the poor, outcast, and oppressed, who are, in the BBC’s mythology, the victims of the Israeli war machine. The idea of Palestinian victimhood is, like the Black Jesus, largely a media creation. To portray Jesus as one of these Palestinian victims is an attempt simultaneously to cast the Palestinians as innocent and sinless, suffering on the cross erected for them by the Israelis, waging an entirely justified campaign of “resistance” that will result in their national resurrection, and to give the world a woke Jesus, who is cool with terrorism because the one being fought is the oppressor, and who is best served not by acts of piety and charity, but by locking arms with Linda Sarsour and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and sticking it to The Man. The White Man, of course.
This fits perfectly for Jones for many reasons including his linking arms and agenda with racist and Jew-hating comrades like Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Zulfat Suara and Ash-Lee Henderson.
In fact, it was none other than Linda Sarsour, one of the most vocal pro-BLM Islamist Jew-haters in the country, who organized and helped lead the Nashville rally shortly after Jones was properly expelled from the Tennessee House chamber.
Sarsour began her relationship with Tennessee back in 2016, with a first invitation from the TN American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC). At that time, Zulfat Suara was AMAC’s chairman; she has recently been re-elected for a second term as an at-large Metro Nashville council member.
At the time Zulfat hosted Sarsour as a speaker, Sarsour was already known for her record of anti-Israel activism including refusing to say that Israel has a right to exist and refusing to condemn notorious antisemite Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan, a man who has praised Hitler and who calls Jews “termites.”
Zulfat also has a besties relationship with Justin Jones, who is a supporter of AMAC. Zulfat endorsed Jones in 2022, for the state legislature, because she “has known [him] for a long time”, including perhaps through the “Our Revolution” Nashville chapter.
In 2019, Jones and Zulfat were comrades endorsed by “Our Revolution”. Jones was a failedcandidate for Congress while Zulfat won a Nashville Metro Council seat.
Our Revolution and the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) often collaborate to help fellow comrades win elections.OR is very active in Tennessee with a Nashville/Mid TN chapter and the Memphis for All chapter.
Our Revolution has previously endorsed Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and state House representative Gloria Johnson who now says she plans to challenge Marsha Blackburn for the U.S. Senate. Scroll through the OR website’s endorsed candidates to get a better feel for what this organization is really about.
In 2019, OR’s 6 endorsed candidates for the Metro Nashville City Council, which included Zulfat Suara, all won their races. Suara subsequently served as one of Bernie Sanders’ Tennessee 2020 presidential campaign co-chairs. Coincidentally, like Bernie Sanders, the now wealthy “democratic socialist” who owns multiple properties approaching $2 million dollars, Zulfat and her husband also appear to own multiple properties valued at almost $1.5 million dollars which includes a residence valued at over $700,000.
The same year that Zulfat was campaigning for Jones to win a seat in the Tennessee General Assembly, he joined her and Linda Sarsour at AMAC’s 10 year anniversary celebration.
Fast forward to 2023, when Zulfat and Sarsour linked arms in Nashville to support Jones’ racist-charging platform return to the Tennessee General Assembly. Not to be outdone, Zulfat had her photo taken escorting Jones back into the capitol building.
Sarsour’s return to organize a rally for Jones was under the banner of her new Until Freedom group which she co-founded with her equally loathsome running buddy Tamika Mallory.
Until Freedom organization
Until Freedom, a self-described “national protest group”, was founded by Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Mysonne Linen, and attorney Angelo Pinto.
Tamika Mallory who was Sarsour’s organizing D.C. Women’s March partner, of course tagged along to get her photo op with Jones, as did Mysonne Linen.
Three peas in a pod, Mallory and Mysonne like Sarsour, admire and defend extreme Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan, a man who apparently was also a friend of Barack Obama.
According to Mysonne, who organized alongside Farrakhan, “…the difference between David Duke and Louis Farrakhan: ‘David duke is a racist who imposed his will to harm and negatively affect blacks, farakhan has a view of Jews based on the pain and harm that he can prove they’ve inflicted on blacks for hundreds of years! See the difference?’”
Tamika had earlier connections to Tennessee. In 2018, both Tamika and Ash-Lee Henderson co- director of the Highlander Center, got to know each other as they traveled on a Jew-hating mission hosted by the intensely anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-democracy, Center for Constitutional Rights which to no surprise, receives funding from George Soros.
Mysonne was also with Tamika and Ash-Lee on the Israel-bashing trip during which they celebrated spending time with the Afro-Palestinian, grenade planting terrorist Ali Jiddah, a former member of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
That same year while Zulfat was leading AMAC, Ash-Lee was a speaker at AMAC’s 2018 program titled, “Linking Liberation Struggles: Challenging anti-Black Racism, Zionism and Islamophobia”.
AMAC attacks Zionism
Salaried agitators Ash-Lee’s Highlander Center and Until Freedom were coalition members encouraging women in 2022, to take a day off from work, school and their other daily activities to support the #Day Without Us protest over reproductive rights.
What does it mean when the color of your skin is the single lens through which you define yourself?
In practical terms it makes Justin Jones a Racist with a capital “R” and no different than the other race hustlers he hangs with. But most importantly, the constant beat of racism!!!! is the mortar that holds their political and electoral coalition together.
Indeed, without a consistent backdrop of racism real or not, Jones and his running buddies have nothing with which to claim victim status and imagined moral superiority.
No doubt that Jones could identify with Al Sharpton who interviewed Jones because Sharpton has a “long history of bigotry that includes anti-white racism, antisemitism, and demonization of law enforcement.” Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton (a 2000 Congressional resolution).
During the same protest Jones tossed a traffic cone at a driver because “good trouble for his good reason” must mean that rules don’t apply to him.
The following month in June 2020, as a continuation of BLM’s protest and demands, Jones, with support from fellow activist Jeneisha Harris, launched a “non-violent” protest on the capitol’s legislative plaza.
“She [Jeneisha] explained that Jones, “Nashville’s favorite activist,” witnessed the attack, but when the group suggested that it should be reported, he said the women had to stay silent “because it would change the narrative of why they’re actually protesting,” and that, “the incident would overpower the advocacy.”’
Jeneisha went on to call Jones a “fake activist” among other labels.
Barber has been noted to “regularly refer[s] to Jesus as ‘a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew’ and who in 2018 falsely accused Israel of ‘targeting’ Palestinian children ‘simply because they want freedom”.
Sociology professors Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry explain Christian nationalism in their book “Taking America Back for God,” and they agree with Barber that there’s a white Christian nationalism (the worst), and a Black Christian nationalism which is progressive and wants to uplift the downtrodden and marginalized in our country.
Justin Jones – it should matter that he isn’t credible
Jones has leveled all kinds of baseless attacks on his Republican colleagues in the state House falsely labeling his expulsion for his extreme violation of House rules, as a “racist vote” taken under the Speaker’s “white supremacist system”.
This is precisely the commentary expected from Jones who surrounds himself with others who like himself, hate Republicans, white people, Jews, Christians who don’t agree with or think like them. Jones will also turn on his fellow activists when it doesn’t serve his political agenda.
Attempting to invoke the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jones and his “Tennessee 3” comrades spoke in Memphis with the Lorraine Motel as the backdrop where MLK’s assassination occurred. (The Lorraine Motel is part of the National Civil Rights Museum).
Unlike Jones, MLK is known for making two defining statements reflecting his position on Israel and Jews. In response to a student at Harvard in 1968 who attacked Zionism, MLK responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
And unlike MLK, Jones has embraced a circle of comrades who vocally and politically engage in Jew-hatred. These same pushers of antisemitic anti-Zionism, like Jones, are all in with BLM, a core component of the umbrella group Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) for black activist organizations. Tennessee’s Ash-Lee Henderson served on the policy leadership team of the M4BL).
Based in black liberation theology, the M4BL policy platforms include one (“Cut Military Expenditures” now linked to the M4BL policy platform on invest-divest), which claims that Israel is an apartheid state, is “complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people”, that homes of Palestinians and land “are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements”, and that “Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US funded apartheid wall.”
It’s the same black liberation theology that drives the antisemitism of Jones’ comrades Sarsour, Mallory, Mysonne and Barber.
And it’s the same black liberation theology that draws Jones to these like-minded and which Jones relies on to compare himself to that “revolutionary brown skin Palestinian named Jesus”.
The self-absorbed Tennessee House member Justin Jones speaks in regurgitated leftist talking points.
Listening to him on the House floor and in media interviews, shows his extreme racist and biased lens without which, he would have no platform. For him, racism and bigotry is a one-way street, as in, like Jones if you identify as black, then you cannot or ever be, a racist.
Jones accused House members who voted to expel him as a “racist vote” and enforcement of the House rules of decorum as a “white supremacist system”.
His accusation of racism and bigotry would be laughable if not so pathetically hypocritical in that he leveled these accusations while talking to Al Sharpton, a black man widely known for his extreme hatred, racist comments and bigotry against Jews.
The resolution was originally introduced by Joe Scarborough who at that time was a Republican from Florida; he is now a leftist MSNBC talk show host – same network as Sharpton’s show. Statements in the resolution include:
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘bloodsucking [J]ews’, and ‘Jew bastards’;
Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as ‘white interlopers’ and ‘diamond merchants’
In 1991, Sharpton helped to incite a vicious riot in the heavily New York Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights. Sharpton led “a parade of rioters who burned the Israeli flag and chanted ‘Death to the Jews,’ Sharpton rose to national prominence when he delivered a revoltingly anti-Semitic eulogy at Cato’s funeral, thundering that the Jewish residents of Crown Heights practiced apartheid, were only there to further the global Jewish grip on money and power and must therefore ‘pay for their deeds.’”
A recent piecein American Thinker poses the question of whether Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black minority Speaker of the House, is a racist. “Like many blacks, he may believe he can’t be a racist because blacks don’t have the “power to effectuate their prejudices,” or when blacks slur whites, they aren’t slurs because they’re truisms to achieve equity. Jeffries’ position highlights why American anti-racism programs won’t be successful until they eliminate that mindset and, instead, encourage blacks to be honest about their racism.”
The article quotes Walter Williams, a conservative economist and himself a black man, who refers to Al Sharpton as a “race hustler”, a term used to describe someone who uses race to inject tension, division and cultivate hate between and among people of different races. Williams wrote that “race hustlers of any color hurt the country“.
Before yesterday’s House floor session, Jones had already labelled voting as racist and the Republican side of the aisle as a system of “white supremacy”.
Looking for racism under every rock and from every Republican without which Jones has no platform, during yesterday’s floor session, Jones said that Rep. Jason Zachary’s bill, HB158, is a bill based in “white fragility”.
Zachary’s bill prohibits school districts, higher education or the state Department of Education from requiring implicit bias training for educators.
Predictably, the bill passed both the House and Senate on party lines and will make its way to Bill Lee to decide whether he will sign it into law or let it go into law without his signature.
Showing his immaturity by taunting and baiting Republican members, Jones makes it clear that he has no respect for the institution or members who do not share his political and/or social justice platform.
When Jones called House member Rep. Sabi Kumar “the brown face of white supremacy”, was that implicit bias or race hustling? Sadly for Jones, name-calling and using racist slurs will not earn him any degree of respect or create any bridge for credible dialogue that may move his issues of concern forward.
Amazingly, the IRS is waaaaay too busy to process 990 filings since 20/21 and the anti-capitalist Highlander Center is waaaaay too busy raking in the cash to post an annual report with updated financials since 20/21.
After all, it’s all about the Benjamins – right?
It’s truly ironic that the Highlander iconoclasts of capitalism don’t mind having the fruits of the system deposited in its bank account or adding it to their “investments” including their relatively new “Fund for the Highlander Education and Research Center”, which as of the 20/21 had assets of over $3 million.Nor do they mind taking proceeds from the accumulated wealth of the Soros Open Society Foundations, the corrupt Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, or the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Not bad for a group of people that literally produce NOTHING and provide NO SERVICES. The “training” and “jobs” funded by Highlander institutionalize and exist to perpetuate hate – hate for white people, hate for traditional values, hate for the state, hate for the country, and absolute hate for the Constitution and the rule of law. And above all, hate for whitey.
In June, Highlander co-director Ash-Lee Henderson made time in her busy hate-filled schedule to spend it with like-minded Marxist and domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. In addition, Ayers and Ash-Lee share an active hatred of all things Israel and Jews.
Predictably, “Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers” podcast includes defunding the police, eliminating prisons and “armed agents of the state” and, an appearance by the “legendary activist Bernardine Dohrn”.
In case anyone may have forgotten, Ayers was a leader in the bomb-building Weather Underground. “Characterizing WU as “an American Red Army,” Ayers summed up the organization’s ideology as follows: ‘[k]ill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.’ One of Ayers’ fellow WU leaders was Bernardine Dohrn, the woman who would later become his wife.”
You can read more onDiscover the Networks about this sick twisted individual’s destructive fantasies:
“In his 2001 memoir Fugitive Days, Ayers recounts his life as a Sixties radical and boasts that he ‘participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972.’ Of the day he bombed the Pentagon, Ayers writes, ‘Everything was absolutely ideal…. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.’ He further recalls his fascination with the fact that a ‘good bomb’ could render even ‘big buildings and wide streets … fragile and destructible,’ leaving behind a ‘majestic scene’ of utter destruction.”
“All told, Ayers and the Weather Underground were responsible for 30 bombings aimed at destroying the defense and security infrastructures of the U.S. ‘I don’t regret setting bombs,’ said Ayers in 2001, ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’ Contemplating whether or not he might again use bombs against the U.S. sometime in the future, he stated: ‘I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility.'”
Ayers’ wife Dohrn and Weather Underground accomplice, became a lawyer and an organizer for the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), an organization seemingly at odds with protecting the liberties and freedom secured by the U.S. Constitution. More recently, the NLG student chapter at Stanford law school demonstrated that freedom of speech is reserved only to those with whom they agree.
Both Dohrn and Ayers eventually took positions in higher education; she at a law school, he at a university. They also had a relationship with Obama.
There is no doubt that Ash-Lee Henderson sees herself as carrying forward the desired destruction and anarchy desired by Ayers. Ash-Lee has turned the once former Highlander folk school into one of the most radical-destruction-seeking wealthy institutions in Tennessee. For those like Ash-Lee that idolize the likes of Ayers, “ends justifying the means” may well mean that “good trouble” and physical violence like that used by the BLM riots, is just the beginning.
Funding start-up groups to expand the reach of Highlander’s goals, training college students, serving as the “activist-in-residence” at Texas Prairie View A&M University, and indoctrinating children with the Highlander’s summer “Justice Camps” is how the Highlander’s Marxists-training will be the revolution’s army of today moving forward and perhaps even, the fulfillment of Ayer’s long-ago dream of “transforming” the U.S.
Just like Hitler said, “he alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
No low is too low for Ash-Lee: bastardizing Martin Luther King’s beliefs are on the table
In 1957, Martin Luther King helped celebrate Highlander’s 25th anniversary by participating in a leadership training conference.
Eleven years later, MLK made two defining statements reflecting his position on Israel and Jews. In response to a student at Harvard in 1968 who attacked Zionism, MLK responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
That same year, just ten days before he was assassinated, MLK joined in a conversation with the Jewish conservative organization called the Rabbinical Assembly at their 68th annual convention. In response to the question about Black-Jewish communal relations and antisemitic and anti-Israel activity within Black leadership, MLK said:
On the Middle East crisis, we have had various responses. The response of some of the so-called young militants again does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and certainly most of the organizations in the civil rights movement do not follow that course.
I think it is necessary to say that what is basic and what is needed in the Middle East is peace. Peace for Israel is one thing. Peace for the Arab side of that world is another thing. Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous ex ample of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.
In a 2002 oped, another civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis, attested to MLK’s “special bond with Israel” and repeated MLK’s understanding that attacking Zionism does not give cover for antisemitism.
Fast forward to 2023, to see the panel “Reimagining King’s Vision”. One issues that unites at least three of the panelists is their anti-Zionist animus justified by a platform of black liberation which they claim includes Palestinians.
Or as MLK would see it, is simply their antisemitism.
Ash-Lee’s antisemitism has been detailed in Part 7.
CodePink founder Medea Benjamin, who at one time loved living in Castro’s Cuba, is sadly, among other things, a Jewish anti-Israel activist.
Tiffany Loftin from the NAACP keeps company with the likes of Ahmad Abuzinaid and Phillip Agnew (now named Umi Selah), both of whom are leaders in the Jew-hating business of BDS (boycott, divestment & sanctions against Israel the goal of which is to eliminate the state of Israel).
Ash-Lee tells her comrades (her term of endearment), “organize the South to save the country.” She describes Highlander’s perspective of the South this way:
“We recognize white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, and colonization as harmful systems that are designed to oppress and divide our communities for the sake of hoarding and maintaining power for the white, wealthy elite.”
Along with her Highlander co-director Allyn, Ash-Lee and representatives from pillar organizations are raising and spreading millions of Benjamins using the Southern Power Fund.
According to the four anchor organizations – the Highlander Center, Southerners on New Ground (SONG), Project South and Alternate Routes, institutional philanthropy and funder practices “can often prop up white supremacist values and inhibit the very work we need right now”.
Included in “racist and white supremacist policies and actions” is any application of U.S. law that would obstruct the advance of illegal immigration and awarding immigration benefits to illegal aliens.
Highlander has a long-standing relationship with the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC). Both groups benefit from illegal immigration by increasing their constituencies. Never forget, however, that the mainstream/RINO/establishment Republicans also want the benefit of cheap foreign labor.Simply look at the policies Tennessee’s weak-kneed and mushy-middle Republicans endorse regarding illegal immigration. Feeding the pipeline of comrades for Highlander’s revolution of hate?
Last year 35 House and 15 Senate Republicans voted to help Democrats pass Republican Shane Reeves’ bill that makes illegal aliens with temporary federal (as in Biden administration) work authorization, eligible to obtain commercial and professional licenses. Helping to advance Biden’s agenda on illegal immigration, Tennessee Republicans have enabled illegal aliens to now becomelicensed teachers, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, general contractors, etc.
Bill Lee of course, rushed to sign it into law.
Sen. John Stevens and Rep. Andrew Farmer, both of whom are lawyers, both voted for the Shane Reeves bill to reward illegal aliens with this state public benefit. It apparently didn’t matter to these two Republican lawyers that the illegal aliens they have rewarded, do not have lawful presence for purposes of getting state public benefits.
Surely they knew, being lawyers and all, that being granted work authorization by the federal government doesn’t change an illegal alien’s immigration status or make them somehow lawfully present in the U.S. for purposes of getting state public benefits.
While Sen. Reeves may not have understood that his target group of Obama’s DACA recipients are not lawfully present for purposes of getting state public benefits, how is it that two lawyer-legislators didn’t know this? Or did they know and chose anyway to vote in favor of rewarding DACA illegal aliens with a public benefit?
Regardless, the bill that Bill Lee signed into law applies to other illegal aliens with work authorization beyond DACA recipients.
Rep. Farmer is pretty soft when it comes to bills dealing with illegal immigration. Hypocritically, when one of the bills sponsored by Rep. Dan Howell dealing with the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being smuggled into Tennessee was in the committee Farmer was chairing, and after Howell admitted that UACs have no lawful immigration status but lamented that his new child care license is “all that we can do” in the face of federal jurisdiction over immigration, Farmer reminded everyone that the federal government has “exclusive jurisdiction even though we are a sovereign state”.
But there is no federal mandate to give illegal aliens state public benefits like professional licenses. Farmer also voted YES in 2015, to give illegal aliens the state public benefit of in-state tuition; the bill failed by a single vote in the House.
While Stevens voted NO on the 2015 in-state tuition bill, he did vote YES on the UAC bill last year.
Word has it that a bill giving the public benefit of in-state tuition to illegal aliens may have enough support this year to finally pass. Reporting as of 2018, noted that at least five states that give illegal aliens in-state tuition also allow them to get a license to practice law.
Will Tennessee become state #6?
Regardless, Stevens and Farmer deserve to be asked why they want to help illegal aliens become licensed to practice law in Tennessee.
On January 24, 2023, twenty states led by Texas, filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s new program to bring hundreds of thousands more illegal aliens into the U.S..
Tennessee is one of the states suing. The other nineteen states are Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Tennessee is represented in this lawsuit by the new Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
These states are asking a federal court in Texas to “enjoin, declare unlawful and set aside the Department [of Homeland Security]’s lawless parole program.”
The parole program addressed by this lawsuit will allow up to an additional 30,000 aliens per month (or 360,000 per year) from Venezuela, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, into the United States without explicit authorization from Congress.
Critically as it relates to Tennessee, migrants admitted under this this new illegal Biden program, will be automatically eligible to apply for work authorization and can stay in the United States for up to two years.”
The Shane Reeves “Workforce Expansion Act” passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed into law by Bill Lee, says that if you have work authorization, you are now eligible for commercial and professional licenses in Tennessee.
Tennessee Republicans have made work authorization the golden ticket for illegal aliens.
The lawsuit
The lawsuit document is structured with each state stating how the new program causes “substantial harm” to their state.Tennessee’s portion begins on p.27 of the lawsuit in paragraph 124.
Eight of the supposedly “red” states, Tennessee included, use illegal alien population data from the Migration Policy Institute, a self-described non-partisan think tank whose funders include, the George Soros Open Society Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration & Refugee Services, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. State Department, the Catholic League Immigration Network, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the JM Kaplan Fund, just to name a few.
Influence Watch describes the Migration Policy Institute as “a think tank that produces research and policy analysis advocating for permanent legal residence for undocumented immigrants in the United States and increased legal rights for migrants and refugees worldwide.”
MPI has also advocated that state and local governments need to provide better services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), with an emphasis on legal representation to help ensure that illegal alien minors can stay in the U.S..
None of the twenty states that are suing use the relevant data from conservative immigration sources like FAIR or the Center for Immigration Studies.
Census-based estimates of illegal aliens living in Tennessee range from FAIR’s 162,000 (218,000 with their U.S. born children), as compared to MPI’s outdated 128,000.
In citing cost of public school education in Tennessee no mention is made directly about the annually escalating cost in the millions to teach English to non-English speaking students who may also be illiterate in their native language but the lawsuit does refer to the “approximately $46.7 million [expenditure] on healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants in its CoverKids (CHIP) program”.
Bad proofreading? “Undocumented immigrants” is the left’s language.
As the lawsuit explains, Biden’s new parole program requires new illegal aliens to have a U.S.“supporter” act as a sponsor. The lawsuit explains that “supporters” can include “individuals with Temporary Protected Status [TPS] and beneficiaries of deferred action (including DACA)”.
FAIR makes clear, that both TPS and DACA recipients “have not been granted ‘lawful status’. Rather, federal immigration authorities have acknowledged their unlawful presence and are opting to temporarily defer their removal from the country.”
This means that Biden’s new program would enable illegal aliens in Tennessee to sponsor bringing new illegal aliens to Tennessee.
Texas governor Abbott puts it simply – Biden’s new program is “flat-out contrary to federal law”. Tennessee’s “Workforce Expansion Act” is also contrary to federal law, and worse yet, abets Biden’s destructive immigration programs and policies.
Attorney General Skrmetti is taking on the new Biden program – any chance he’ll address what Tennessee lawmakers have done to his own state?
Republican state lawmakers like Rep. Mark White, Sen. Todd Gardenhire, Rep. Patsy Hazelwood, and others, have long been advocating for the interests of illegal aliens.
Not to be outdone, last year Tennessee’s pro-illegal-immigration lawmakers and enough Republicans including House caucus chairman Jeremy Faison, joined Democrats in advancing Biden’s agenda on illegal immigration by officially making federal work authorization the golden ticket for illegal aliens to settle in Tennessee.
GOP Sen. Shane Reeves and Democrat House member Bob Freeman convinced enough Republicans to help Democrats pass “The Workforce Expansion Act”. And of course, Bill Lee rushed to sign it into law. (consider that former Nebraska Republican governor Pete Ricketts recently appointed to take Ben Sasse’s seat in the U.S. Senate, vetoed a similar bill passed by his state legislature. Ricketts said it wasn’t fair to immigrants who followed the law to come to the U.S. Unfortunately, the foolish legislators overrode his veto).
The new law gives illegal aliens with federal work permits the public benefit of getting commercial and professional licenses.
In typical fashion, Tennessee’s lawmakers didn’t bother to consider the far-reaching implications of this new law or consider how it advances the left’s agenda on illegal immigration.
In fact, “The Workforce Expansion Act” rewards federal work permits being issued under a Biden immigration program thatisn’t legal.
So using federal work authorization as “cover” to justify appeasing NFIB and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce no longer passes the smell test.
Tennessee’s new law directly abets Biden’s border program granting parole to Venezuelan, Ukranian, Cuban, Haitian, and Nicaraguan migrants – a program which immigration experts note will continue to flood the country with “‘up to’” an additional 30,000 aliens per month (or 360,000 per year) into the United States without explicit authorization from Congress. Aliens paroled into the United States under these programs will be automatically eligible to apply for work authorization and can stay in the United States for up to two years.”
This program among others like Obama’s DACA program, violate U.S. immigration law meaning that illegal aliens are granted immigration benefits that Congress never authorized them to receive. Simply put, these groups of illegal aliens have no legal or lawful access to these benefits.
At the same time, GOP lawmakers focused on advancing the interests of Obama’s DACA grantees, have chosen to deliberately ignore the fact that these individuals also have no legal, Congressionally authorized immigration status. They are also ignoring the fact that in July 2021,a Texas U.S. District Court ruled that the DACA program was procedurally and substantively invalid and in violation of U.S. immigration law. This ruling was affirmed by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
And yet, Tennessee’s state government voted to give the DACA illegal aliens a state public benefit.
It’s difficult to understand why Tennessee legislators support facilitating illegal immigration. In 2018, GOP Rep. Patsy Hazelwood tried to kill the anti-sanctuary city bill to protect crime committing illegal aliens from deportation and in 2015, Rep. Pat Marsh was glorifying illegal aliens as the “star athletes” and “star students” while he was voting to give them the public benefit of in-state tuition.
It remains to be seen when Rep. Mark White and Sen. Todd Gardenhire once again try to secure in-state tuition for illegal aliens. The big question on this issue is whether they will ignore another federal law that would require Tennessee to give in-state tuition to any U.S. citizen from any state if they give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. How would in-state tuition advocate former gubernatorial candidate now UT President Randy Boyd feel about the lost dollars?
When it serves their purposes Tennessee lawmakers defer to federal jurisdiction over immigration. But when they pass laws which gratuitously advance the interests of illegal aliens, they are effectively nullifying U.S. immigration laws. It’s bad enough that the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to side-step, over-ride and openly violate the immigration laws that are supposed to protect U.S. citizens, but why are Tennessee lawmakers helping Biden with that agenda?
Lt. Gov. Randy McNally who supports giving in-state tuition to illegal alien students is concerned that“we’re headed for a downturn in the economy”. And yet, he voted to make Tennessee more attractive to the cheap foreign labor awarded with Biden’s work authorization instead of protecting jobs for Americans and legal immigrants.
Former Chairman of The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, U.S. Congressman Barbara Jordan, a black Democrat from Texas, better represents Tennessee voters concerned about the impact of illegal immigration, than the current Republican super-majority Tennessee General Assembly.
Jordan was known for looking at illegal immigration through the lens of the “national interest”. As Chairman Jordan told a House committee in 1994, “for immigration to continue to serve our national interest, it must be lawful. There are people who argue that some illegal aliens contribute to our community because they may work, pay taxes, send their children to our schools, and in all respects except one, obey the law. Let me be clear: that is not enough.”
When will GOP lawmakers step up and follow Barbara Jordan’s lead?
Next week, The Tennessee Conservative will host its second Freedom Summitbilled as “A Gathering of Tennessee’s Most Influential Conservatives in Media, Policy, Advocacy & Activism”.
Brandon Lewis, founder of The Tennessee Conservative, will speak at the summit on “Corporatism Vs. Conservatism: Reclaiming the TNGOP”. Given the stated theme of the summit and in particular Lewis’ subject, it is ironic that a representative of the Koch-backed AFP whose immigration agenda is intended “to benefit big business and corporate interests”, will also be speaking at the summit.
AFP-TN state director Tori Venable, who was featured at last year’s summit, will be back again this year. Venable works for and represents the Koch-backed AFP. She also helps to promote the immigration agenda of AFP’s LIBRE Initiative.
It is at best confusing that AFP-TN is being lumped in with the state’s “most influential conservatives” since AFP goes to great lengths to NOT promote itself as a conservative organization. The reason AFP doesn’t promote itself as a conservative anything, is because it isn’t. Neither are its founders, largest funders or positions on critical issues like illegal and legal immigration.
This year AFP’s Venable wears two hats in her listing – as a representative of AFP and something called the “conservative braintrust panel”. The term “braintrust” may be used to designate a pool or network of individuals with a specific talent or expertise. For sure, AFP-TN has a “talent” for hiding AFP’s agenda on illegal immigration from Tennessee conservatives – unless of course you remember Venable’s 2019 oped about finding “common ground” on illegal immigration.
AFP’s Illegal and Legal Immigration Agenda
It is reported that the bulk of AFP and the AFP Foundation’s backing come from personal foundations funded and controlled by billionaires Charles Koch and his late brother David who used to chair the AFP Foundation board. AFP Action PAC is also heavily financed with Koch money.
Keeping it all in the “family”, Mark Holden, general counsel and senior vice president of Koch Industries who now chairs the AFP Foundation Board, co-chaired with David for the two years preceding David’s death in 2019.
AFP is a 501(c)(4) and the foundation is a 501(c)(3), which helps to shield its money sources.
While the Koch brothers were reputed to be fiscally conservative, David was a self-described “social liberal” who was pro-abortion. In 1980, David ran as a libertarian vice-presidential candidate promoting “full legalization of abortion”. The remaining Koch brother Charles appears to agree with his brother’s positions.
AFP characterizes its positions on legal and illegal immigration as intended to reform a broken immigration system.
The Koch position on illegal immigration was initially centered around amnesty for illegal aliens granted DACA.More recently, the Koch network which includes the Koch-funded LIBRE discussed below, “are cheering President Joe Biden’s automatic extension of work permits for border crossers and illegal aliens….Many of the work permit categories eligible for this auto-extension are earmarked for illegal aliens, including those who simply filled an asylum application that the government has yet to adjudicate and those with TPS”.
The illegal aliens with federal work permits which are being cheered by the Koch network, are now eligible for commercial and professional licenses under the new Tennessee law sponsored by Republican state senator Shane Reeves. The new Tennessee law advances the agenda promoted by AFP and LIBRE.
AFP-TN Venable’s 2019 oped urging Tennesseans to find “common ground” on immigration was co-authored with the president of LIBRE. AFP-TN’s silence on the Reeves bill and deliberate omission to score his “Workforce Expansion Act” seems like an almost deliberate effort to pretend that AFP-TN somehow stands apart from its parent organization’s policy and political objectives. It looks very much like the salaries of AFP-TN’s director and deputy director are paid by AFP and here, with additional support from Stand Together which will be discussed below.
Does anyone really believe that AFP-TN can disavow the AFP-LIBRE immigration agenda?
With regard to legal paths for immigration the Koch AFP, joined by the George W. Bush Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition including Bethany Christian Services, is pushing Biden to expand mass immigration to the U.S..
Bethany Christian Services is a Tennessee licensed provider of adoption and foster care services and operates in five locations in the state. They maintain a contract with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to receive and provide transitional foster care services to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) who are typically smuggled across the border by family members who themselves are here in violation of immigration laws. A Bethany representative testified to last summer’s Joint Study Committee convened by the Tennessee General Assembly. Several committee members praised the work of Bethany despite the fact that their movement of UACs facilitates illegal immigration to Tennessee.
When the Koch network of “donor class organizations” talk about helping employers who are “struggling to find workers to fill jobs in many industries”, they are talking about cheap foreign labor regardless of whether it undercuts the U.S. working and middle class.
AFP has also made it clear that they will use their super PAC AFP-Action to endorse any candidate who supports AFP’s amnesty agenda. So, it is no coincidence that AFP-Action endorsed John Coryn from Texas and Thom Tillis from North Carolina, the two Senate Republicans who approached Democrats to resurrect discussions about amnesty for grantees of the illegal DACA program.
AFP’s advocacy for illegal and legal immigration run through the veins and interlocking leadership of AFP, its sister organization LIBRE, it’s Uniting for Immigration Reform PAC and their Stand Together initiative.
The LIBRE Initiative
In 2011, Daniel Garza launched the LIBRE initiative with almost $10 million dollars from the Koch’s Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. LIBRE’s primary mission was to convert Latinos into Republican voters. Much like AFP, “[i]n an investigation [in 2015], ProPublica found that LIBRE not only receives millions of dollars of funding from the Koch network but appears to be controlled by it as well.”
As far back as 2013, LIBRE’s President Daniel Garza (who served in the Bush administration), has endorsed amnesty for DREAMERs, i.e., beneficiaries of Obama’s illegal DACA program.
LIBRE’s early “statement of principles” seeking legal status for children brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents required the parents to be working legally in the U.S.. The current revised LIBRE position focuses solely on advocating for ”permanent status” for “DREAMers” and those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). It no longer matters whether the parents or whoever may have transported the “DREAMer” to the U.S., is themself here legally.
In fact, in last year’s case in federal court where the DACA program was ruled “illegal”, and DACA grantees were acknowledged to be illegal aliens per federal immigration law, a document introduced by the U.S. government showed that half of the DACA grantees were visa overstayers and many DACA grantees entered the U.S. on their own. DACA only requires that the individual be at least 15 years old when they apply and have entered the U.S. before turning 16. According to FAIR, “the age range of eligible beneficiaries spans from 24 to 40 years old. No DACA recipient or DACA-eligible alien in 2021 is a minor.”
The “permanent status” that LIBRE and AFP want for illegal aliens typically means green card also referred to as legal permanent resident (LPR). Green card holders after a certain number of years, can typically become citizens.
As to the “undocumented population”, LIBRE wants a “permanent legislative solution” so that they can “come out of the shadows and get right with the law.”
LIBRE is talking amnesties for both groups of illegal aliens. Amnesty does not always mean citizenship, but rather, forgiving illegal immigration status and providing an immigration status that enables the otherwise illegal alien to remain in the U.S. without threat of deportation.
AFP and AFP Foundation’s tax filings from 2017 through the last available 2019, lists Garza as Executive Director. This is the same Garza with whom AFP-TN’s Venable co-authored the oped on finding common ground on immigration.
Jorge Lima, AFP’s Senior VP of Policy, listed as such in AFP and AFP Foundation’s tax filings from 2017 through the last available 2019, was variously the Executive Director and Policy Director of LIBRE between 2013 and 2018.
LIBRE’s position on amnesties tracks the 2013, bipartisan Gang of 8 comprehensive immigration reform bill which included a blanket amnesty called “registered provisional immigrant status” for illegal aliens in the U.S.. Even the Congressional Budget office agreed that the bill gave amnesty to illegal aliens, and also reported that the G of 8 plan would barely make a dent in reducing future illegal immigration.
The Gang of 8 bill also incorporated the goals of the DREAM Act to amnesty illegal aliens who entered the U.S. before age 16, whether brought by parents at a young age or entering on their own.
To no great surprise, Tennessee’s globicans Corker and Alexander voted for it.
In 2019, Charles Koch announced that he was reorganizing his variously funded entities to now be called “Stand Together”. One of the groups was the Seminar Network, “a network of nonprofits funded by Charles Koch and like-minded conservatives and libertarians who donate at least $100,000 annually to ‘help people improve their lives.’”
Along with many worthy issues affecting people’s lives such as encouraging businesses to hire formerly incarcerated individuals and help them restart their lives, the Seminar Network also tried to use its heft with Trump, to push amnesty for DACA.
In an effort to consolidate its influence, AFP put LIBRE and Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) under the AFP controlled “Stand Together”. Importantly, AFP reserved to itself, “all political and policy efforts of LIBRE and CVA.
This also means that wherever a state AFP chapter operates, so does LIBRE. AFP-Action and LIBRE Initiative Action also work together in state legislative races.
On the heels of this reorganization, AFP’s CEO and Senior Advisor for AFP-Action, issued a memo announcing four new super PACs that will “make contributions directly to candidates”. That way politicians seeking re-election and would-be politicians won’t be afraid of earning their AFP PAC money even if they make their constituents unhappy.
The new PACs are, “Uniting for Economic Opportunity”, “Uniting for Free Expression”, “Uniting for Free Trade”, and “Uniting for Immigration Reform”.
Conclusion
While Tennesseans watch the General Assembly’s House chamber move toward the center and the Senate drift left, it makes it much more important for The Tennessee Conservative news outlet to remain credibly conservative. Featuring AFP and worse still, promoting AFP as a conservative organization, raises legitimate credibility questions.
