Author: Pat Hamsa

Posted on

Pearson Publishing Company “Champion” Sponsor of the Gender Spectrum Professionals’ Training

Pearson’s 2021 annual report section on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion touts the company’s top score for LGBT workplace inclusion and further describes the company’s outreach efforts to recruit more LGBT specific employees. For “social impact”,  Pearson committed to “continue its partnership with Career Accelerator, an LGBT+ Youth Mentoring Programme.”

In 2019, Tennessee Commissioner of Education, Penny Schwinn, announced that the state would finalize a 5 year contract with Pearson to take over the annual student assessment program called TNReady. One news outlet projected the Pearson contract to cost $93 million dollars by the 2023-2024 school year. 

Getting in on the growing industry of companies and foundations peddling gender influence to students, Pearson, the self-described “world’s leading learning company,” was a “champion” sponsor of Gender Spectrum’s 2020 training.

According to its mission statement, “Gender Spectrum works to create gender sensitive and inclusive environments for all children and teens”. They list a broad range of “clients” who presumably share Gender Spectrum’s objectives.

Gender Spectrum’s 2022 annual training for “professionals” who have contact with children and/or work to influence the systems which provide services to children, including schools, convened last week on July 14-15, featuring a wide range of speakers promoting the full spectrum of gender diversity including transgenderism, at any age. One speaker presented “Gender Justice in Early Childhood” while another session featured the creators of “Gender Inclusive Classrooms” one of whom is a second grade teacher, teaching about establishing “Rainbow Clubs” for K-5 students. 

“Rainbow Clubs” are “an elementary school version of a GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance).” GSAs are “student-run organizations that unite LGBTQ+ and allied youth to build community and organize around issues impacting them in their schools and communities. GSAs have evolved beyond their traditional role to serve as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth in middle schools and high schools, and have emerged as vehicles for deep social change related to racial, gender, and educational justice.”

The bottom line is that GSAs work to turn students into LGBTQA+ activists and to normalize everything on the growing alphabet of perceived gender.

GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) is a centralized national organization serving a variety of functions including helping to establish and support state chapters starting GSAs in schools. Tennessee’s GLSEN chapter sponsored the “East Tennessee Diversity Prom” in Knoxville. 

GLSEN has a wide ranging set of leadership positions. To no great surprise, the board is led by a representative of the National Educators Association and senior advisors include representatives from Disney and TikTok.  

Counted among GLSEN’s leadership is Michael Rady, the Rainbow Library Program Manager who describes himself as “a queer educator, organizer, and reader” who just also happens to have migrated from the Northeast, to Nashville, Tennessee.

Lyndsey Godwin is GLSEN’s Manager of Network Capacity Building who also has made an imprint in Tennessee.

GLSEN is another organization offering professional development for educators including tools for librarians regardless of whether they are community or school-based. One of GLSEN’s recommendations is for the librarian to provide meeting space for a GSA or, “better yet, become a sponsor of the club!” This is the same recommendation being promoted in the National School Library Standards. 

Pearson UK is forthright about its efforts to promote LGBT+ to students, parents and educators, as an “inclusion” issue and says they have devoted employee resources to “explor[ing] all identities represented by the ‘plus’ symbol.” The glossary will be helpful to anyone who has not yet discovered that the “+” includes labels such as “quadgender”, “two-spirited” and “gray-ace”.

It requires a little more probing to reveal Pearson US advocacy for LGBT+ education and materials but it is definitely part of US product line. 

Pearson advertises its “tuition-free online public school” called Connections Academy as a “safe, inclusive” space offering a “path forward for all kinds of students”:

At Connections Academy, we provide a LGBTQ inclusive education, giving students the space to gather and get to know one another, which helps in so many ways. Students learn that they are not alone and that they can depend on one another. Because so many students come to Connections Academy after feeling like they didn’t belong in their brick-and-mortar schools, our teachers and students go the extra mile to make all kids feel accepted and valued.  

The Gay Straight Alliance Network can offer support and guidance to anyone interested in starting a group at a brick-and-mortar school for LGBTQ students and their allies.   

We can change the world if we provide LGBTQ inclusion in schools, and create a space where students feel welcomed and valued.  

Pearson’s Tennessee Connections Academy is located in White House, Tennessee.

It goes without saying that no student or adult for that matter for any reason whatsoever, should be bullied. At the same time, institutional providers like Pearson, schools, educators, and therapists should begin respecting the diversity of opinions, beliefs and practices across the full spectrum of students and families.

 

Posted on

District 63 (formerly Glen Casada) – Please, No More State Legislators With Questionable Money Handling

Exchanging sexually demeaning text messages and the scandal it created was enough for Glen Casada to resign as Speaker of the House. But it was not enough for District 63 to reject him as their representative, choosing instead to re-elect him in 2020 to serve for two more years. 

Sparing his district from further humiliation, but with stunning hubris, Casada, whose home was searched by the FBI for suspected ties to “shadowy” handling of campaign money, ran for Williamson County Clerk in the most recent primary. County voters handed him a resounding defeat.

Isn’t it time for voters in District 63 to clean up their act and elect someone who won’t continue to make Tennessee a national joke (watch video at end of post), and who demonstrates prudence when it comes to money? 

District 63 candidate Laurie Cardoza Moore has put up a highly stylized campaign website that looks good and sounds good but ….?

In contrast, Republican candidate Jake McCalmon’s campaign website is straightforward, reflecting a no nonsense grassroots, self-made working man who has earned his money instead of living off donated funds like Moore does from her 501(c)3 Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN).

Moore describes herself as a homeschool mom but talks a lot about what she believes is going on in the state’s public schools. In contrast, McCalmon has three kids who right now actually attend his county’s public schools where he has a front row seat and a very personal investment.

Given the legacy of Casada which doesn’t appear to be over, District 63 voters should pay scrupulous attention to any money-handling information related to their next representative. For example, Moore’s non-profit organization PJTN 990’s raise reasonable questions.

The vast majority of money accumulated by Moore comes from donors which is then used by PJTN to employ Moore, her husband and her children. 

Nashville Scene’s Betsy Phillips has also noticed Moore’s handling of her organization’s finances. While her 501(c)(3) shouldn’t show a “profit”, it has, however, proven more than profitable for Moore, and her family members.  As Phillips notes, of the nine officers listed in the 2019 tax filing, Moore is the sole officer being paid, while “[t]he person who prepared the tax return and who is one of these officers was paid no salary.” 

In time for the 2020 tax year the PJTN Treasurer received a $60,000 salary.

The 2019 tax filing shows Moore’s salary at $145,120, despite running a balance sheet of liabilities outstripping revenue. The following year Moore took approximately 12% of donated funds and increased her salary to $160,000, continuing to run a balance sheet of liabilities exceeding revenue.

Daughters Christina and Jessica have been paid as “contract labor” since 2011, while daughter Josephine moved from contract labor to a $47,876 salary beginning in 2019.

Moore’s husband, owner of MP Films, Inc., has likewise profited from the PJTN business. Tax filings between 2011 and 2020, show that MP Films, Inc. was paid over $700,000 for “production expenses”. But according to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website, MP Films, Inc. was dissolved in 2009. 

In 2020, Moore raised $1,360,051- almost all from donors. She paid herself $160,000, paid her husband’s business $97,301 and paid a total of $63,824 to employ three of her kids. In addition, she annually claims an “occupancy expense” which has been as high as $40,000 but a measly $36,484 in 2020. Phillips notes in her piece that Moore is using her “own nonprofit [to] pay[s] her this money to keep offices in a property she owns, like rent for having her own home office.” In PJTN’s early days, donor money also paid $15,445 in “rent and utilities” to Moore’s husband Stan who served as an officer of the organization.

In just one year, Moore’s “business model” paid out $421,433 to benefit her family. That amounts to 31% of donated funds going into the pockets of the Moore clan.

Another very serious question District 63 voters should address with Moore is the $150,000 loan made to its board chairman Stanley Tate. Despite Tate’s personal wealth, a sizable balance of the loan has not been repaid. According to Tennessee law, 48-58-303, non-profit corporations like PJTN are not supposed to “lend money to or guarantee the obligation of a director or officer of the corporation”.

Scattered through PJTN’s tax filings are amounts claimed for lobbying expenses, a chunk of which are not subject to tax. Moore’s 2017 claimed lobbying expenses of $86,000 presumably included her failed performance in front of a Tennessee House subcommittee. Despite lacking a credible factual foundation, Moore insisted that the University of Tennessee Knoxville campus was a hotbed of antisemitism driven by the campus’ Hamas related student groups. Three students from UTK, two Jewish and one Muslim, told legislators a completely different story sending Moore and her bill down in flames.

Moore’s stated positions on the issues posed on her campaign website are pretty standard fare from members in the General Assembly. Even her positions on Israel and antisemitism which have fueled her fundraising have long been the meat and potatoes of Tennessee Jewish Federations, the state’s Jewish community’s leader organization. 

This year, leaders from the Jewish community worked with state legislators, many of whom are members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Israel grassroots organization in the U.S., to pass two landmark bills; a pro-Israel bill and another pushing back on antisemitism. Both bills will help educate all Tennesseans about antisemitism. Nor are Moore’s “ideas” about law enforcement training in Israel new or unique – it’s already being done and it’s the same for increased trade relations with Israel.

Plenty of free money in “production expenses” and a home-based business has made it easy for Moore to promote herself on social media and youtube. After all, that’s what brings in the dollars. If elevated to public office though, will she manipulate a new promotional perch from which to financially enrich herself and her family?

After the Glen Casada fiasco, District 63 has an opportunity to rehabilitate itself by sending someone whose representative duties won’t be inextricably tied to their organizational fundraising and nepotism that provides jobs for her family.

Posted on

TN GOP State Legislators Do Most of Left’s Work on Illegal Immigration… 

With the exception of SB2245/HB2128, this year’s crop of GOP sponsored immigration bills show Republican legislators caving to the left’s agenda on illegal immigration.

SB2245/HB2128, sponsored by long-proven conservative Sen. Joey Hensley and Rep. John Crawford, in a nutshell, bars non-U.S. citizens including illegal aliens and lawful permanent residents (LPR, aka, green card holders), from voting in a federal, state or local election. Different categories of LPRs are eligible to adjust their immigration status to citizen. For example, refugees who are legally admitted to the U.S, through the overseas refugee program, are required to adjust their immigration status to LPR after one year and are then eligible four years later, to try and pass the citizenship test.

The bill also prohibits a local jurisdiction from granting a non-U.S. citizen the right to vote. All House Democrats voted in favor of the bill while all Senate Democrats voted against it.

Beyond this one bill, thanks to the GOP, the left is high-fiving itself all the way to the border.

SB2783/HB2868 sponsored by Republicans Sen. Bo Watson and Rep. Ryan Williams. Both legislators served on the summer’s misnamed Joint Study Committee on Refugees which was convened in response to the discovery of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) arrivals to Tennessee. 

When it became public that the UAC arrivals, who enter the country illegally, were being housed in a federally-contracted facility in Chattanooga, legislative leadership felt compelled to spring into action! Adopting the love language of the left which refers to UACs as “refugees”, Tennessee’s leadership convened the Joint Study Committee on Refugees. 

As defined in federal law, UACs have “no lawful immigration status in the United States”. 

Were they confused by Congressman Mark Green’s bill which treated UACs as refugees? This was one of the very few times they should have listened to pro-refugee Bill Lee who, believe it or not, understands that UACs are not refugees – “[when] the Times Free Press asked specifically about the migrant children, the governor said the Times Free Press was conflating unaccompanied minors with refugees. “‘These are unaccompanied, illegal immigrant children,” Lee responded during the Monday news conference. “Those are two entirely separate issues.’”

Nevertheless, both Watson (who cheered on Green’s bill) and Williams, sponsored SB2783/HB2868, a bill initially intended to reopen a state office on refugee resettlement to track UAC arrivals. The bill was subsequently amended to remove the reopening of a state office and instead, to simply have after-the-fact arrival information sent to different legislative committees.

While presenting his bill, Rep. Williams repeatedly told his colleagues what a great job Catholic Charities is doing with the state’s refugee resettlement program and that the NGO is a “great partner to the state”.

After the GOP fortified Catholic Charities of Tennessee with the largest dump of money the non-profit has ever received, the rave reviews sound more like a justification for a questionable decision.

In November 2020, the state handed over $7.3 million dollars of taxpayer money to Catholic Charities to spread their infrastructure into ten new counties without any restrictions on also spreading their refugee resettlement activities.

 

Bottom line of the Watson-Williams bill is the knowing when illegal aliens arrive – that’s it.

SB2729/HB2711 sponsored by Republicans Sen. Dawn White and Rep. Dan Howell, the co-chairs of the misnamed Joint Study Committee on Refugees.

In direct contradistinction of quick steps taken in Florida with DeSantis’ emergency order to “ban the issuance or renewal of all state licenses to companies or NGOs that provide services to UACs” in his state, Tennessee legislators are actively creating a new category of state agency for UACs called the non-traditional child care agency (NCCA). As described by Rep. Howell, this initiative is intended to enable the state to better provide for the “safety and welfare” of the UACs because according to Howell, the “federal government says states have to”.

Howell was honest about the fact 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. Trying to soften the blow, committee chairman Andrew Farmer reminded everyone that the federal government has “exclusive jurisdiction even though we are a sovereign state”. 

DeSantis clearly disagrees, because his administration followed up his emergency order with new rules that retains the bar on licenses for facilities housing UACs sent to Florida in the absence of a cooperative agreement between the state and the federal government.

Howell’s bill would limit the number of UACs housed in a dormitory style facility like the one in Chattanooga, limit the number of facilities across Tennessee and the facility owner would have to pay the state for each child. Importantly, Howell, the bill supporters and the Joint Study Committee members are leaving Bethany Christian Services’ (BCS) license untouched even though BCS, a federal contractor, testified that they provide transitional foster care services to UACs in Tennessee. In other words, they admitted that they facilitate illegal immigration in Tennessee.

Sen. White presented the Senate companion bill without ever mentioning that the new non-traditional child care agency was being created specifically for UACs. 

The House and Senate bills are going to their respective Finance Committees; the House Finance Subcommittee passed it but placed it behind the budget.

Probably the most intelligent comment to come out of any committee on this bill was made by Democrat House member Mike Stewart. He made the point that if employers were thrown in jail for hiring “undocumented” workers, this could all come to a screeching halt. Stewart is right in mocking GOP concern about illegal alien kids given the GOP’s willingness to bend at the knee of NFIB and the TN Chamber who want to keep cheap labor flowing to the state as evidenced by the next bill on E-verify.

SB1780/HB1853 sponsored by Sen. Jon Lundberg and Rep. Clark Boyd. The bill was pretty much the amendment approved by the TN Chamber and the small business lobby NFIB, during the last legislative session when Rep. Griffey wanted to require all Tennessee employers regardless of the number of employees, to use E-verify (the Employment Eligibility Verification) program. 

Unable to pass his bill, Griffey folded and accepted the meaningless 25 employee threshold, but the bill never advanced in the Senate that year.

The Chamber/NFIB 25 employee amendment now being sponsored as a bill by Rep. Boyd was amended in the Senate by Lundberg to raise the employee threshold to 35 or more employees. Lundberg was also forced (by a committee Democrat), to confirm that illegal immigrant workers can receive workers compensation albeit not at the same level as work authorized employees. Some make a credible argument that Tennessee law builds in an incentive to hire illegal immigrant workers.

After the House passed the 25 employee threshold bill, it backed down, re-voted and agreed to accept the Senate’s 35 employee threshold. Does the Tennessee GOP value legal workers? The concerns and devaluing of hard-working legal immigrants and U.S. citizens is secondary to GOP appeasement of the business community. Never mind their own conflicts of interest and their willingness to abet the destructive agenda of the left.

It is difficult to understand the GOP resistance to mandating use of E-Verify program for all businesses. E-Verify is a FREE federal database which checks the social security numbers of newly hired employees against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security records to help ensure that the new employee is eligible to work in the U.S.

When Tennessee first passed its E-Verify law in 2011, businesses with 6 or more employees were required within one year to begin using it. In 2016, the General Assembly caved to special interest lobbyists and raised the employee threshold to 50 employees.

Consider that the highest number of UACs released into the U.S. are reported as boys ages 15 – 17+ except there are plenty of credible reports that the working age “boys” are actually adults lying about their age. Add to this factor, the reports documenting 67,000 illegal alien essential workers in Tennessee and the Metro Nashville government report of 31,000 illegal aliens living and working in Davidson County. Both reports are likely under estimating the numbers in light of the Biden open border policies.

SB2730/HB2712 sponsored by Sen. Dawn White and Rep. Dan Howell. This is another “now we’ll know after it happens” bill.  This bill reflects particulars learned during the summer hearing mostly related to statutory limitations on the Department of Children’s Services as to how they issued the license to the facility in Chattanooga and then dealt with the license after discovery of criminal behavior by certain staff at the facility and the incident of a resident running away from the facility.

The “child” who left the facility was discovered to have somehow made it back to his country of origin.

While the bill allows under certain circumstances for revocation of a DCS license, most of the bill is more about filing reports. The bill does require a license applicant to disclose any agreement they may have with third parties to provide residential child care services. This does not mean nor does the bill provide that a license can be denied to an applicant who has a federal contract to provide services to UACs. 

Neither of the Howell-White bills reflect any concern that UAC arrivals are part of a human smuggling operation. Rather, the bills work to accommodate the practice. Nor do the bills reflect any concern that U.S. HHS data from 2018 – 2019 shows that 79% of sponsors to whom UAC are released, were “without status” meaning that they were present in the U.S. illegally.

Bottom line in Tennessee on UAC arrivals is we will accommodate because as Howell stated, the “federal government says states have to”.

Posted on

TN’s Dems Hate Jews & Repubs Join Them in Hating Parents

Not a shocker that NO Tennessee state House Democrats voted to support the bill against the antisemitic boycott of Israeli businesses with whom Tennessee does millions of dollars of trade. But Democrats were doing what they always do – walk in lockstep with their leaders in D.C. and supporting the Biden administration’s real push on Israel. And if there is any question about where the Democrats stand on Israel, both the Iran nuclear deal and the Biden blaming Israel for his policy on Ukraine, the veil is lifted on Biden’s long-known hatred of all things Jews and Israel/ 

But when it comes to parent rights in Tennessee, we are starting to see that Tennessee’s GOP, many of whom like to wave their allegedly conservative principles, sidled over to the Democrats’ overt disrespect for parents’ relationship with their own children. Never forget that it is Biden’s Justice Department that labelled parents concerned with their children’s education, “domestic terrorists“.

The Tennessee House vote for and against Israel

On Monday in Tennessee’s General Assembly, Rep. Ryan Williams presented his Israel anti-boycott bill on the House floor. Two Democrats abstained and the rest voted NO. All Republicans who were present voted to pass the bill. Earlier in the Senate, Democrat Heidi Campbell whose district includes a large swath of Jews, voted against the bill.

It’s no secret that the DNC platform is anti-Israel so it should be no surprise that the Biden administration is following it.

Biden’s ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, Obama’s former deputy secretary of state, has confirmed that he doesn’t believe Jews should live in Jerusalem, is against Jews living in Judea and Samaria an area of Israel he has refused to visit just like his refusal to view the tunnels used by Hamas terrorists to murder Israeli civilians. Nides insists on calling the Islamic terrorist “pay to slay” program as “martyr” payments which just happens to violate the U.S. Taylor Force law. Then there is the desire of the Biden administration to reopen the U.S. Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem. 

On this last point, early last year, Sen. Bill Hagerty introduced a bill which passed the Senate, that would keep Israel’s capital city Jerusalem from being divided by the Biden administration’s push for a Palestinian consulate which has been vigorously opposed by Israel’s government. According to Hagerty, Biden’s plan, violates the U.S. “Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995”, which his bill upholds and which passed the Senate. Senate Republicans continue to fight Biden’s antagonistic Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who wants to reopen the Palestinian consulate in the western part of Jerusalem, deliberately infringing on Israeli sovereignty and deliberately attempting to redivide Israel’s capital.

Add to this that the U.S. State Department has announced a grant which will reward $1 million of taxpayer money for anti-Israel NGOs to report alleged human rights abuses by Israel. Forget China, Cuba, Russia, Iran, shari adherent countries, and Biden’s other favored Marxist friends.

Biden and those who speak for him or rather, work to excuse whatever comes out of his mouth, only serve to prove that his anti-Israel/anti-Jew animus is real. There simply is no way to justify his and the DNC’s alliance with aggressive Jew haters like Linda Sarsour (who btw, is also embraced by the Tennessee AMAC), and Al Sharpton. 

Tennessee legislative subcommittee joins Democrats and refuses to recognize parental rights

On Tuesday, the House Health Subcommittee chaired by one of the worst legislators the GOP has to offer, in a show of collegial disrespect, refused to allow Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver to present her bill on parental rights to the subcommittee. 

Rep. David Byrd (R-Waynesboro), offered a motion to hear the bill while not a single Republican would provide a “second” to allow Rep. Weaver to present her bill. Demonstrating the epitome of cancelling the voice of their legislator colleague and Tennessee parents, not a single other Republican spoke up. Of course, the lone Democrat on the subcommittee did what was expected of him and remained silent as well.

Proving once again his “worst GOP legislator” bona fides, subcommittee chairman Bob Ramsey ignored the fact that it is not against the rules for the chair to “second” the motion and allow the bill to be heard.

Except for Rep. Byrd, this offensive move by the subcommittee members is too obvious in its intent to be ignored. None of these cowards want to record a NO vote against parents and probably hoped that it would go unnoticed. That is how stupid they think Tennessee voters are.

Well, Rep. Weaver who is among the minority of clear-headed and conservatively principled serving legislators and she is not quietly going along with what she described as the “feckless men” (ie, careless and irresponsible) on the subcommittee.

As reported by the TNStar,, Weaver said that her bill “was the same in principle to one that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed in 2021.”

“Florida’s HB 241 included legislative findings that it is a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education and care of the minor children and that important information relating to their minor child’s health, well-being and education while in the custody of the school district should not be withheld from the parent.”

Weaver’s bill is even more critical for Tennessee given that despite a law passed last year by the legislature, CRT is still being taught in Tennessee schools. 

It’s no surprise that Bill Lee and his milquetoast administration made it known that they were opposed to the bill. 

Any wonder conservative transplants to Tennessee are shocked when they discover that the conservative grassroots base is actually only reflected in a teeny-tiny minority in the General Assembly and entirely absent in the governor’s office?

One of the “feckless men” of the subcommittee Bob Ramsey, has a primary challenger. We don’t know Bryan Richey, but on paper he sounds good and the fact is, that parents in his district who care about their kids can’t possibly do worse than Bob Ramsey. If Ramsey manages to hide his long record of gross missteps and grosser voting record from his district and is sent back to Nashville, he should not be rewarded with chairing any subcommittee or committee; let Speaker Sexton know how you feel.

If conservatives in Tennessee want to take back the GOP, they had better start letting their representatives know what they think.

Messages of support to Rep. Weaver can be sent to rep.terri.lynn.weaver@capitol.tn.gov

Messages to Speaker Sexton can be sent to speaker.cameron.sexton@capitol.tn.gov

Posted on

Bill Lee’s Legislation Changes Law to Let LEAs Hide Corporal Punishment of Students with Disabilities

Every legislative session “the administration”, i.e., Bill Lee,  has bills they would like to have the legislature pass into law. It is the responsibility of the Senate and House Majority Leaders to either distribute the bills to other members to handle, or save some for themself to try and get passed.

This session, Bill Lee’s team handed down SB2416/HB2166 so that Bill Lee can show us how he continues to put his mark on education.

This bill is so important to Bill Lee that Sen. Jack Johnson and Rep. William Lamberth, the two Majority Leaders, are carrying the bill themselves.

Unfortunately, the bill does not rid us of the incompetent Commissioner of Education.

This bill is full of all kinds of goodies that will relieve teachers, schools and LEAs of responsibilities. 

Tucked into this bill is the part that allows schools to hide whether they use corporal punishment with students who have disabilities, because they will no longer be required to report this data to the Department of Education.

According to the group Autism Tennessee:

Of the total instances of corporal punishment in the 2019-2020 school year, 17% of the instances involved a student with an IEP or 504 plan. [these are students with disabilities]

See below for these reports from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years:
2018-19_Corporal_Punishment_Summary.pdf
2019-20_Corporal_Punishment_Summary. pdf 

In years past the practice was so widespread with regard to students with disabilities, that the Democrat controlled legislature passed a bipartisan sponsored bill prohibiting the Department of Education and all LEAs from hiring anyone “who has been found to have abused a child or an adult and whose name has been placed on the state’s vulnerable person’s registry or the state’s sex offender registry.”

They won’t be known if not required to report per Bill Lee’s new bill. Sadly for Tennesseans it looks like the House and Senate will put Bill Lee’s terrible bill into law on Monday. Is this really what the super-majority stands for?????

Hey Bill, that’s a great way to leave your mark on education – not

Posted on

TN State GOP Curcio Calls Rep. Cepicky a “Show Horse” & Then Votes to Keep Pornography in Schools

Yesterday, the Tennessee General Assembly’s Criminal Justice Subcommittee continued its hearings about Rep. Cepicky’s bill, HB1944, that would keep pornographic and obscene reading materials out of Tennessee’s schools. Plenty of people showed up to speak for and against the bill.

The video is posted through the link here https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1944. Get comfortable, make a big bowl of popcorn and watch the show.

Prior to the show getting started, Cepicky explained the bill and how the bill avoids broad brush book banning and the explicit guardrails in the bill to avoid indiscriminate censorship and possible constitutional challenges. As Cepicky explained, the bill permits the review of books and materials in schools to determine if they are in violation of the state’s law on obscene materials provided to minors, here and here.

Everyone knows that groups like the ACLU and other Marxist driven organizations, will sue and claim that taking pornography out of schools violates students First Amendment free speech rights regardless of whether that claim is legitimate or not. In fact, the folks who spoke in opposition to the bill including a representative of school librarians and prize-winning authors of books for minors, waived the students’ rights flag for everyone to hear. These same speakers carefully avoided addressing the super explicit examples taken from Tennessee school materials, provided by the first set of panelists.

Probably one of the most impactful points made by one panelist, was that the books found in different county schools in Tennessee, would be considered contraband and disallowed for distribution in the state’s prisons.

To no great surprise, the subcommittee’s two Democrats voted against the bill.

But, prior to the vote, Republican Michael Curcio, who is not a lawyer, schooled the committee on why the bill was “facially unconstitutional”, referred to the bill sponsor as a “show horse” and then voted NO when the roll call was taken.

Curcio explained that a “show horse” is one that does “a lot of huffin’ and puffin’” as opposed to a “work horse” who actually gets something done.

GOP Rep. Michael Curcio – claims he’s against pornography and obscene materials in schools but votes with Democrats to keep it in schools.

Email Curcio and tell him how you feel about his NO vote –rep.michael.curcio@capitol.tn.gov

Two things to consider about Curcio’s vote. First, the week before, the Main Street book store owner in Curcio’s hometown of Dickson testified in opposition to the bill. Second, two subcommittee members who actually are lawyers voted for the bill. Even more surprising about these two lawyers is that one is the Majority Leader William Lamberth, and the other is Andrew Farmer who tends to lean RINO. 

Moral of this legislative hearing? Cepicky the “work horse” is putting his all into getting the needed protection for Tennessee’s school children across the finish line while Curcio stands with Democrats and leftists who want to keep pornography and obscene materials in our schools.

Posted on

States Can Combat Illegal Immigration If They Really Want To

 

When Tennessee’s elected tell you that they can’t do anything about illegal immigration, that it’s all up to the federal government to fix, or because the Chamber of Commerce and the NFIB small business lobbyist say it’s anti-business, or because it’s not really a problem in Tennessee because the governor and too many RINO state legislators refuse to acknowledge the growing problem in Tennessee, show them this:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/11/ron-desantis-agenda-blacklist-companies-facilitating-illegal-immigration-to-florida/

DeSantis has been working hand-in-glove with his Republican state legislators to protect his state’s citizens and legal residents from the destructive immigration policies of the Biden administration.

DeSantis has already issued an emergency order to “ban the issuance or renewal of all state licenses to companies or NGOs that provide services to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) in Florida.” Now he has sent six legislative proposals to the legislature to address the problem of businesses, NGOs, and any other concern whose operations facilitate illegal immigration.

DeSantis is sending a clear and unequivocal message, that these businesses and NGOs are not welcome in his state and he will do whatever is legally within his power and that of the other branches of his state government, to make life untenable for those helping spur illegal immigration.

Tennessee on the other hand, continues to bend over backwards to accommodate the Chamber and NFIB on any business related legislation practically forgetting that big businesses have been moving to Tennessee because of the business-centric benefits. 

For example, Alliance Bernstein moved its headquarters from NYC because it is simply cheaper from any and all perspectives to operate in Nashville as compared to NYC. In addition, their employees could afford to live where they work. They and their woke politics were welcomed with Tennessee taxpayer money.

As to illegal immigration, Tennessee’s state legislators choose to side with the Chamber and NFIB and close their eyes to growing problem in the state. Even with lax workplace enforcement, GOP Rep. Mike Sparks couldn’t stop himself from whining about the fines placed on employers who hire illegal aliens in violation of state law.

And heaven forbid Tennessee actually pass an E-verify law that actually makes sense, assuming a bill that makes sense is actually filed. The E-verify process requires submission of certain documents which then are compared to U.S. government databases to determine “employment eligibility”, ie, that a person is legally authorized to work in the U.S. There are three categories of acceptable documents to establish identity for submission through the E-verify program. If a person cannot submit one of the documents from List A, then they must submit one document from each of List B & C. 

List B includes submission of a drivers license but it must be backed up by a document from List C.

What this means is that Tennessee’s current statute and any bill that relies solely on a drivers license to determine employment eligibility, is meaningless given the numerous documented reports of fraud perpetrated in the issuance of driver licenses. And that’s to say nothing of the implications for voter fraud.

Tennessee legislators spent months and taxpayer money exploring the arrival of UACs to the state and Sen. Richard Briggs and Rep. Ryan Williams making excuses and minimizing the impact of NGO Bethany Christian Services whose Nashville director openly admitted to contracting with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to receive and provide transitional foster care to UACs extolling the Christian virtue of facilitating illegal immigration to Tennessee.

Catholic Charities of East Tennessee, also reputed to be assisting UAC arrivals to Tennessee, was asked to appear before the committee but simply didn’t show up and the committee just couldn’t be bothered to follow up.

At least two members of the Joint Study Committee, Sen. Richard Briggs and Sen. Bo Watson, after wasting taxpayer money on the study committee, conceded that addressing illegal immigration is a federal problem and they can’t really do anything about it at the state level. Worse still, Watson says we need to look to our federal legislators to fix the problem and Briggs says Tennessee is not in an illegal immigration crisis, so basically, we don’t have anything to be concerned about.

Both Watson and Briggs were cheerleading Mark Green’s UAC refugee bill which allows an illegal alien living in Tennessee to facilitate the smuggling of a child to the U.S. border without any penalty, and which would override the (unlikely) governor’s veto regarding UAC placements in Tennessee.

Tennessee not only has a growing illegal immigration problem strengthened immensely by the proliferation of well-funded NGOs protecting illegal aliens living and working in the state, so much so that they are holding public rallies protesting employers who take advantage of illegal alien workers because they are “undocumented.”

These are the employers being protected by bad policy pushers like the Chamber and NFIB and bad policy makers like Briggs, Watson to name a few.

They could not be more wrong on all counts. We’ve already had the lesson that when Republicans had complete control of the federal government, they did nothing to address the problem of illegal immigration. In fact, they worked against the most impactful, beneficial for Americans, immigration policies put forward by Trump. Why would we expect anything more in 2022 or 2024?

The DeSantis lesson is crystal clear – our Constitutional system of federalism equips states with power if they choose to use it and it is absolutely up to states to guard their own best interests. Unfortunately for Tennessee, the governor’s office and too many in the General Assembly don’t see it that way and perhaps even believe that a certain amount of illegal immigration (ie, cheap labor), is just fine for Tennessee.

Posted on

Bill Lee and TN’s General Assembly Fail Conservatives on COVID & Immigration

Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles nailed it when he accused Bill Lee of “indecisiveness and half measures” in response to the multi-faceted attack by Democrats on our Constitutional rights and liberties.  

Like Lee, too many Republicans in Tennessee’s General Assembly also sidestep concerns voiced by the conservative base of the state’s GOP.

Republican leadership in Florida should be the measuring stick by which Tennessee conservatives judge Tennessee’s governor, House and Senate members. Tennessee’s elected spend a lot of air time crowing about their conservative credentials but come up short when it comes to action. DeSantis and his fellow travelers don’t need to talk about their conservative principles; they simply show it through action.

Bill Lee has wiffled and waffled around COVID issues, failing time and again to articulate an informed and educated understanding of the state’s exclusive Constitutional authority to assert and protect our rights. He would do well to take a lesson from DeSantis and learn about federalism and state’s rights which DeSantis asserts with forceful clarity:

“…So, the states are the primary vehicles to protect people’s freedoms, their health, their safety,
their welfare in our constitutional system.”

Bill Lee chose inaction in response to Biden’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate. Nor did he call a special session to enable the legislature to act. Despite Speaker Sexton’s urging to convene a special session, Lee, with the backing of Establishcan Lt. Governor McNally, continued to refuse. Fortunately, Sexton didn’t back down and instead, flexed the muscle responsible for getting a COVID special session on the calendar. 

The final COVID omnibus bill is pretty typical of what comes out of the General Assembly. Legislators caved to big business and private companies with mask mandates and vaccine mandates for certain healthcare workers and other employees of institutions which receive federal funding, leaving these workers at the mercy of a deranged federal government. “The new law allows employers, private businesses, schools, and state and local governmental entities to apply to the state comptroller for exemption from the requirements of the statute if compliance would result in a loss of federal funding.” If granted, an exemption means that vaccine and mask mandates can be enforced. Fifty-seven Republicans and one Democrat voted in favor of the final bill (including the House member who called vaccine mandate supporters “medical Nazis”); eight Republicans voted no and two Republicans abstained. 

In stark contrast, DeSantis timely used the full scope of his authority, worked in concert with his legislators to protect Floridians from COVID mandates, and made it clear that fundamental Constitutional rights must never concede to the megalomania of Washington politicians. 

DeSantis exemplifies the type of leader Tennessee desperately needs. 

Immigration

The very same pattern of political nonfeasance by Tennessee’s elected has played out on immigration issues. 

It’s a known fact that Republican Reps. Bob Ramsey and Patsy Hazelwood, the legislature’s top “Tennessee Last” lawmakers, want to protect illegal aliens who commit crimes in Tennessee, (Tennessee’s Worst Pro-Illegal Immigration GOP State Legislators), which is why they would not support passing the sanctuary city bill in 2018. Of course, neither did Haslam who was governor at the time and who refused to support the bill letting it go into law without his signature. 

One month after reneging on his campaign promises related to illegal immigration, Haslam said that immigration is a federal issue and has little to nothing to do with being a governor. During his campaign Bill Lee also tried to convince voters that he was hawkish on illegal immigration. In reality, Lee’s sole pushback on Biden’s open border and policies incentivizing illegal immigration, has been to sign a letter with other governors requesting a meeting with Biden. Lee’s signature on the letter is at best, a meaningless gesture since unlike other signers, he’s done nothing to attack the problem in Tennessee.

In stark, predictable contrast, DeSantis issued a comprehensive executive order to attack illegal immigration to his state with a named official responsible for enforcing the order, and his Attorney General filed suit against the Biden administration. Included in DeSantis’ EO, is a provision addressing the granting of licenses to facilities housing unaccompanied alien minors (UACs) who are, defined in U.S. law, as illegal aliens.

When Haslam tried to bluff his way out of knowing that UACs were being delivered to Tennessee, immigration and refugee advocates questioned his pretended non-knowledge – “[t]he unaccompanied minors have been placed into Tennessee households with approved “sponsors” — typically their own families and relatives — as has been happening for years….’[u]naccompanied minors have been coming into the U.S. for years and years and years,’ said Holly Johnson, state refugee coordinator for the Tennessee Office of Refugees.”

More recently when the arrival of UACs to Chattanooga was made public, state Sen. Todd Gardenhire who knew where they were being housed, expressed his own surprise that other Tennessee elected officials claimed not to know. The fact that Tennessee’s DCS had licensed the Chattanooga facility and Bethany Christian Services (which authored an oped about their services to UACs in Tennessee), knowing that both had contracts with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide services to UACs, raises serious questions about Bill Lee’s knowledge around the issue.

After lots of political theater and multiple meetings, members of the misnamed Joint Study Committee on Refugees plan on issuing a report based on their findings. They may also propose legislation. Two “highlights” of the last meeting should be noted. First, Catholic Charities of East TN which is known to provide services to UACs arriving to Tennessee was asked to appear and speak with the committee, but failed to show up. Second, during this last meeting, both Sen. Richard Briggs and Rep. Ryan Williams went to great lengths to minimize the role of Bethany Christian Services which provides foster care services to arriving UACs despite testimony about the virtues of facilitating illegal immigration to the state.

Add to this that committee member Sen. Todd Gardenhire has pushed for more illegal immigration to Tennessee and has sponsored bills to reward those who violate the law. Rep. Chris Todd was the sole committee member that accurately noted that an agency like Bethany Christian which is licensed by the state but has a contract with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide services to UACs was facilitating illegal immigration.

There are plenty of other Republican members in the Tennessee General Assembly who are too willing to claim that immigration, legal and illegal, is exclusively for the federal government to handle. Center for Immigration Studies Policy Director Jessica Vaughn strenuously disagrees and has provided a detailed roadmap for state and local action on legal and illegal immigration which also includes suggestions for states on refugee resettlement.

Since the Tennessee legislature gifted $7.3 million dollars to Catholic Charities of Tennessee to enable the leftist organization to expand their infrastructure into ten new counties, the legislature should consider putting some meaningful guardrails on that money. Regardless, that money, which CCTN said is the single largest grant they have ever received, will free up the agency’s other funds to serve their work with legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens.

Bill Lee’s position on wanting more refugee arrivals to Tennessee is well known. His weak and unrealistic position regarding Afghan arrivals is centered on acceptable vetting but is nothing more than a political smokescreen. And as par for the course, his supposed opposition is not backed up with any articulated plan to act in the best interests of the state. 

In 2020, the Nashville government issued a report documenting that 31,000 illegal aliens are living and working in Davidson County. That same year the Center for Migration Studies estimated that in 41,200 legal immigrants and 66,900 illegal aliens are working in Tennessee “often at great risk to their health and lives – to keep Americans safe, healthy, fed and poised for economic recovery.”

These reports are clear indicators that the state has a robust base and state-wide infrastructure of organizations support illegal immigration to the state and it is reasonable to assume that with Biden’s open border and other policies incentivizing illegal immigration, the numbers in Tennessee have increased. 

Add to this that the Biden administration is working to more firmly embed and expand Obama’s unconstitutional DACA (deferred action for childhood arrivals) program. Despite being an overt unconstitutional exercise by Washington bureaucrats, Tennessee legislators like Todd Gardenhire and Mark White, have over the years, worked to try and pass legislation supporting this program. 

At one point in time, Tennessee’s Attorney General Herb Slatery joined the coalition of states challenging the DACA program but after meeting with TIRRC, the gang leader of organizations pushing illegal immigration in Tennessee, Slatery withdrew the state from the litigation. Instead, he chose to advocate for amnesty for illegal aliens. This is the same Attorney General who refused to assert the state’s Tenth Amendment position with regard to refugee resettlement. In other words, this Attorney General appears to also believe that immigration is solely a matter of federal control.

Compassion should never be far from our collective consciousness, but neither should the rule of law and its fundamental importance to an ordered society, especially when the issues are grounded in the Constitution. Even if Republicans in Congress achieve a majority in either or both chambers, there will be no trickle down in policy which addresses the challenges faced by conservative voices in the direction Tennessee is heading. This problem demands that individuals get involved at all levels of state government and stop giving a pass to those in office who continue to work against conservative principles. 

Posted on

TN’s Elected Okay With Illegal Immigration in the State

The first problem is that we don’t have a Ron DeSantis type governor. The second problem is that the TN Chamber of Commerce and NFIB have outsized influence over too many legislators in the General Assembly. The third problem is that there are too many Republicans in the General Assembly who are simply okay with illegal immigration.

With over 130,000 UACs, over 380,000 family units and over 950,000 adults – all illegal aliens, having crossed the border from October through August for a total so far for FY21 of over 1.5 million, untested and untreated for COVID, but still being shipped to communities around the U.S., you’d think our so-called “conservative” super-majority would get serious about the impact on Tennessee.

Add, another 16,000 migrants from Colombia and another caravan of 40 – 60,000 Haitians heading to the border not including those waiting in Mexico which by December, an internal report speculates will total 125,000 migrants waiting to cross into the U.S..

And these massive numbers are on top of the almost 60,000  Afghan (many unvetted or poorly vetted) evacuees being relocated to communities around the U.S. and the 125,000 refugees Biden promises to import from overseas during FY22. BTW, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants is urging Biden to up the number to 200,000.

Even before Biden opened the border and stopped construction on the border wall in April 2020, the Nashville government issued a report documenting the 31,000 illegal aliens living and working in Davidson County. The following month, the Soros funded Center for Migration Studies reported that at least 66,900 illegal alien “essential” workers were earning their livelihoods in Tennessee. 

The Partnership for a New American Economy 2016 report put the illegal alien population in Tennessee at 128,620.

Then there’s TIRRC….

TIRRC board member Sandra Pita, an illegal alien living in Memphis who has work authorization and temporary deferred deportation because she is a DACA beneficiary of the unconstitutional Obama program tells us that she was promised a pathway to citizenship and it’s time to give it!  In any case she says, she deserves it because of the sacrifices she’s made to “go out every day and work on the front lines to keep this country going” by being paid to clean people’s homes during COVID. Pita says that she has a business that employs other women and was forced to reduce her staff because she was denied COVID relief money.

While both Pita and her husband are illegal aliens, their six children were born here and are considered U.S. citizens. Pita admits that her husband cannot work legally but yet, is employed by a home remodeling firm. See why E-verify is important?

Pita is hoping that her soon to be 21-year old son can file the paperwork to legalize her and her husband.

Pita is a board member of the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), an organization which has benefitted in the past from Soros funding. More importantly perhaps, is TIRRC’s six paid lobbyists who aggressively attack key legislation at Tennessee’s state legislature. It doesn’t hurt that TIRRC maintains a large staff and over $3 million in the bank.

David Lubell, a former organizer with Latino Memphis launched TIRRC at the same time the Nashville Chamber of Commerce signed up to be a paid site for a U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement pilot called “Building the New American Community”. One objective of this grant was to demonstrate how local governments could help immigrants and refugees better integrate.  It emphasized building coalitions and immigrant leadership.

Since then, TIRRC has become the state ringleader with a satellite office in Memphis and along with Latino Memphis, Centro Hispano in Knoxville, La Pax in Chattanooga, and Conexion Americas in Nashville, advocate for illegal aliens and refugees in the state. TIRRC Votes has helped Marxist candidates in Tennessee get elected to local seats.

TIRRC fiercely opposed the sanctuary city bill and the lesser publicized municipal identification bill along with every bill that creates any obstacle for illegal aliens in Tennessee.

It doesn’t help that Tennessee’s Attorney General is super soft on illegal immigration going so far as to advocate for amnesty for the “dreamers” after meeting with TIRRC’s director a few years back. No different than Haslam who ran as a hawk on illegal immigration, refused to sign the sanctuary city bill, and ended up pushing in-state tuition for illegal alien students in Tennessee.

Even though illegal aliens depress the wages of the least skilled Tennessee workers, the General Assembly and its conflict-of-interest driven voting, is complicit in throwing legal Tennessee workers and conservative voters under the bus in deference to the wishes of the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB, because “we are a business friendly state.”

If Tennessee legislators were serious about illegal immigration in the state they would at least…

  • fix the Tennessee municipal ID law and amend TCA 8-5-120 to prohibit the use of consular cards for identification in Tennessee.

Back in 2018, Rep. William Lamberth and then state Sen. Mark Green sponsored a bill that would have prohibited the use of consular cards issued by foreign governments, to be used for identification by state residents. During the hearing in the House, “co-Directors of TIRRC admitted that immigrants who primarily rely on consular cards are ‘people who do not have immigration status’ and that the Mexican consulate visits Tennessee monthly to issue its consular cards.” Lamberth also pointed out that “illegal immigrants use the matricula consular to obtain services here and to avoid deportation” and “impressed upon the subcommittee members that law enforcement can’t run that card through a database to verify a person’s identity.”

City governments had begun issuing local municipal ID cards to illegal aliens to help them appear as   

if they had some type of legal presence. In some cities, municipal ID cards are used to enable voting in local elections.

Lamberth’s bill passed the House intact prohibiting the use of the consular cards. Mark Green  dropped that part of the bill in the Senate and unfortunately, the House ultimately concurred. 

Tennessee law has long prohibited the use of the consular card for identification to get a driver’s license although it is likely that illegal aliens obtaining driver licenses in other states are using these or fraudulent documents to get Tennessee driver licenses.

  • require every business operating in Tennessee to use E-verify. Data from states which mandate the use of E-verify by all employers shows significant reductions in the number of illegal aliens working in those states.
  • require that any individual seeking to do business in Tennessee and obtain a license to operate, provide documentary proof of lawful immigration status. This would apply to independent contractors as well. It is critical for Tennessee lawmakers to understand that DACA does not confer any lawful immigration status. 
  • follow Oklahoma’s example and impose a wire transfer fee on the money illegal aliens send out of the country. 
  • audit the issuance of driver licenses to ensure that fraudulent documents are not being used and that state law is being followed.
  • discontinue licensing companies and organizations that cater to illegal aliens including those that contract with ORR to move and/or resettle illegal UACs to Tennessee 

If Bill Lee and Republicans in the General Assembly were serious about illegal immigration they would hurry up and study Governor DeSantis’ Executive Order 21-223.

It won’t be Congress or another Trumpian president who will soften the blow to Tennessee. It’s highly unlikely that Bill Lee will rise to the challenge.

The Tennessee General Assembly already has the authority and Constitutional mandate. They can help insulate the citizens and legal immigrants living in Tennessee from the disastrous effects of Biden’s illegal immigration policies and the efforts of traitorous and/or inept Republicans in Congress.

Posted on

TN UAC Arrival Numbers Indicator for Illegal Alien Employment Violations?

The federal government only reports county level numbers for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) arrivals if the number is 50 or more. This means that UACs may well have been placed in more counties throughout Tennessee than are officially reported and since information on individual children and their receiving sponsors is kept secret, state officials have no way to know where or even how many children being smuggled over the border are now making their home in Tennessee.

The latest data posted by the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services for UAC county placements only goes through May 2021 and shows that a total of 1,470 UACs were placed in the following counties:

Davidson – 719;  Hamilton – 161;  Knox – 88;  Rutherford – 104;  Sevier – 71;  Shelby – 327.

However, the state total for UAC placements is 1,775, suggesting that there are other county placements that do not meet the 50 reporting threshold.

Per federal policy there are three categories or levels of UAC sponsors, none of whom are required to have legal immigration status:

Category 1: Parent or legal guardian (This includes qualifying step-parents that have legal or joint custody of the child or teen)

Category 2A: An immediate relative–a brother; sister; grandparent or other close relatives (aunt, uncle, first cousin) who previously served as the UAC’s primary caregiver. (This includes biological relatives, relatives through legal marriage, and half-siblings).

Category 2B: An immediate relative– including aunt, uncle, or first cousin who was not previously the UAC’s primary caregiver. (This includes biological relatives, relatives through legal marriage).

Category 3: Other sponsor, such as distant relatives and unrelated adult individuals.

Category 4: No sponsors identified

On the issue of illegal immigration the Tennessee state legislature is most accurately described as taking “half measures.” Campaign trail big talk against illegal immigration never quite translates into full measures recommended by experts with E-verify being one of the issues. That being said, there are two action steps the General Assembly could undertake if they are serious about countering the negative impact of illegal immigration in the state.

The Tennessee Lawful Employment Act  is the state’s E-verify law. Discovered violations of the law that is in place to ensure that only individuals legally able to work, are hired. The TN Department of Labor & Workforce Development is responsible for investigating complaints that the law has been violated and if so, levy the prescribed fines.

Recall, that Rep. Mike Sparks was wringing his hands about fines being imposed on law-breaking businesses found to be hiring illegal alien workers. Someone in his district should remind him that the idea behind the fines is to remind businesses that they have to follow the law.

Tennessee’s law also allows lawful residents of the state to submit an E-verify violation complaint form – available here. The law also says that the money collected from the violations is to be put in a fund and used to enforce the law. Feel free to scroll through the violations here.

With the high number of illegal aliens making their way to Southern states, perhaps the Tennessee General Assembly needs to look at bumping up investigating and catching business violators.

Additionally and in some ways perhaps even more importantly, is a focused audit to determine whether driver licenses are being issued to illegal aliens, an issue not addressed in the most recent audit of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Driver licenses are a gateway document. They can be used to bypass being determined ineligible under the state’s E-verify law. They can be used to access almost all public services and is a key document which helps an illegal alien “pass” as if they have some type of legal immigration status. Oh yeah, and vote.

Tennessee’s driver licensing law could be considered one of the few full measure laws in that the documents required to actually get a Tennessee driver’s license are typically not in the possession of an illegal alien. The law also specifically does not permit the matricula consular card to be accepted as “proof of identification for driver license application and issuance purposes”. 

Banning the use of the matricula consular card state-wide for any identification purpose should be put into law.

There have been any number of cases where fraudulent documents have been used to obtain legal documents like driver licenses and other cases like the one in Massachusetts in 2017, where corrupt state workers were selling state driver licenses and identification cards to illegal aliens. Judicial Watch uncovered the trade in fake Puerto Rican birth certificates being used to get U.S. passports and driver licenses.

In February, Homeland Security busted a fraudulent document ring run out of Los Angeles selling counterfeit U.S. passport cards, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and other documents. 

No telling how many of these fake documents have been processed through Tennessee driver license centers or presented to employers with fewer than 50 employees and who can take a drivers license in lieu of using the E-verify database.

And it wasn’t that long ago that twenty illegal aliens in Tennessee were indicted for using fraudulent documents in order to work. Even border patrol catches illegal aliens using fake documents.

The UAC numbers and known county distribution suggest starting point locations where state officials should scrutinize compliance with the law.