Author: Pat Hamsa

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Pro Illegal Immigration Org Says State Needs to Fund More Services for UACs

A June 2021 report issued by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) says that Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and the “parents or other sponsors” to whom they are released after being smuggled across the border illegally, need better post-release services.

Better yet, MPI’s report Strengthening Services for Unaccompanied Children in U.S. Communities, recommends that state and local governments and philanthropy should fund legal, medical, mental-health, economic and educational services needed by these illegal aliens. They are especially concerned about UACs who are relocated to “rural and other underserved communities.”

Major funders of MPI include the U.S. State Department, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc, National Conference of State Legislatures, Soros Open Society Foundations, and the Gates Foundation.

MPI emphasizes that immigration status and any immigration enforcement must not be connected to any post-release services provided to either the UAC or their sponsor. The disconnect between immigration status and enforcement is echoed in Mark Green’s UAC bill and was similarly ignored in 2015, when Tennessee state senators voted to reward illegal immigration by awarding in-state tuition to illegal alien students in the state.

Then state senator Green voted for that bill as did Sen. Richard Briggs who supports Green’s UAC bill and also sits on the legislative joint study committee addressing the UAC issue in Tennessee.

One particular post-release service emphasized in the MPI report is free legal representation for UACs since it dramatically increases the likelihood that immigration relief will be awarded so they can remain in the U.S.. Noted in multiple reports is the fact that UACs who do not have attorneys simply don’t show up for their immigration hearings. Per the DHS FY20 enforcement report, of the 6,105 UACs ordered removed by immigration judges 4,514 of them failed to show up in court. That was just for FY20 which one analyst says demonstrates the incentive for UACs to enter illegally because they know they can stay and also incentivizes parents to smuggle their children into the U.S..

The MPI authors claim that after the federal government makes sure to dump the arriving UACs into local communities, “most children receive no federal follow-up services.” MPI says that enhanced post-release services are needed because UACs are traumatized by their trip to the U.S. border (many of whom are smuggled by coyotes paid for by parents also in the U.S. illegally), they may be reuniting with parents who abandoned them in their home country and may have now married in the U.S. and have anchor babies, so integrating into this new environment can be stressful for the arriving UAC. 

Like Green’s UAC bill, the MPI authors acknowledge that there is “no citizenship or immigration-related requirement for sponsor (for the UAC) approval. Green’s bill goes one step further and enables an illegal alien sponsor to override a governor’s veto for UAC placement in a state. This effectively puts a state in a position of abetting illegal immigration which former federal prosecutor Josh Jones says is indisputably “linked with organized crime.”

MPI admits that parent benefit from getting UACs into the U.S.:

“The great majority of unaccompanied children who enter ORR custody are released to a parent or close relative. In FY2020 of children who left ORR custody, about 39 percent were released to a parent, 46 percent to another close relative, and 16 percent to a more distance relative, family friend, or other approved sponsor.”

The open border advocates also want schools to do more to provide support to these new students and their families but admit that not all entrants enroll in school. It is reasonable to assume that the high number of male 15-17 year olds currently entering as UACs are not coming for education. Illegal employment and gang connections are, however, reasonable assumptions based on accumulated data. MPI itself cites (and disputes) 2017 ORR data that “1.6 percent of unaccompanied children in ORR custody had gang affiliations.”

While emphasizing the economic stresses for arriving UACs and their families made worse by the COVID pandemic, MPI also confirms what should be of great concern to legislators:

“Unaccompanied children often lack health insurance and lack access to primary care after release from ORR custody. Some children with jobs cannot access health insurance through their employer if they are not eligible for work permits.” (emphasis supplied)

Anyone else wondering how and where they are working? This admission by the left should be enough for Tennessee legislators to finally require ALL businesses in Tennessee to use E-verify.

In addition, officials reported a “900 percent increase in July for the number of migrants testing (COVID) positive.” And while the federal government is putting travel restrictions in place for U.S. citizens and state and local governments are debating whether to revert to certain COVID restrictions, the Biden administration is moving UACs and other illegal aliens from the border to communities across the country.

At the same time, the Biden administration had earlier threatened Americans further by planning to lift the Title 42 public health restrictions used by the Trump administration to block thousands of illegal aliens from entering the U.S. due to COVID. With numbers increasing, rescinding the Title 42 order is on hold.

In the meantime, GOP Senators John Coryn and Thom Tillis are using the “bipartisan” approach to reward illegal immigration by proposing an amnesty for DACA grantees even while admitting that the Obama program is unconstitutional. Tennessee state legislators Mark White and Todd Gardenhire also wanted to reward beneficiaries of the unconstitutional program. Coryn and Tillis unabashedly admit that it’s about maintaining the workforce. This is no different than Tennessee state legislators who refuse to protect legal workers in Tennessee, especially lower skilled workers, by passing comprehensive E-verify. Tennessee has it’s own misguided pro-illegal immigration state legislators who also are all too willing to concede on the issue. 

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Judge Shuts Chattanooga UAC Facility But TN Legislators Support Them Coming Anyway

Last week an administrative law judge upheld the state’s license revocation for the federally contracted facility in Chattanooga housing unaccompanied alien children (UAC).

During the (misnamed) Tennessee state legislative Joint Study Committee on Refugees meeting three days prior to the judge’s ruling, the Commissioner of the Department of Children’s Services testified and was questioned extensively by Tennessee legislators about the incidents leading up to the suspension of the facility’s license.

Towards the very end of the hearing, state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson, which is part of Hamilton County), offered some very interesting comments. First he reminded everyone that when discussing UACs and referring to them as “children” can be misleading because the data shows an “overabundance of male older youth” which he put at about 70% who are between 15 – 17 years old. 

Then Watson read an excerpt from correspondence he had received from a constituent prefacing it by stating that “it represents what I would believe is a significant percentage in my district.” He went on to read from the correspondence:

“It is heartbreaking to me to see and hear of children being dropped into our city, separated from their families and left to the government system of the United States. Tennessee must insist on the rights of their citizens in this matter. I hope that you will insist that Tennessee expedites the return of these children to their parents, in their country right away. It is not only abusive to these children, but also to require that Tennessee bear the cost of promoting this child abuse.”

Is it safe to assume that Watson read his constituent’s letter into the legislative record because he agrees with it?

If that’s true, then why is Watson supporting Mark Green’s UAC 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 governor’s veto regarding UAC placements in Tennessee? And to incentivize smuggling even more, the “biological relative” to whom the UAC is reunited with in Tennessee can also be an illegal alien.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has pointed out that “poorly written laws that incentivize the smuggling of illegal immigrants under the age of 18” contribute heavily to the increasing number of UACs crossing the border illegally. In 2018, then DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen cited certain draw factors for increasing the number of UACs surging at the border which included, “an immigration system that rewards parents for sending their children across the border alone…”

Regarding Green’s bill Watson was quoted in full support: “I was glad to provide my input and greatly appreciate Congressman Green seeking it. This bill fully addresses the federal government’s failure to seek Tennessee’s approval and should be passed immediately.”

Worse still, Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), who is also on the (misnamed) Joint Study Committee on Refugees also supports Green’s bill and said, “I spoke with Congressman Green at length concerning the unacceptable relocation of illegal immigrants to Knoxville. His legislation is simple, straightforward, and provides the changes necessary to ensure our state has a say in the process.”

And finally, giving law-abiding conservative Tennessee voters a realistic taste of the direction state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson would move the state should the rumor be true that he is vying to become the next Lt. Governor, he said in support of Green’s bill: “It is unacceptable for the Federal government to relocate unaccompanied minors into communities in Tennessee without the consent of state officials. I am grateful for Congressman Green’s leadership in addressing this pressing issue.”

Watson is chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Briggs is chair of the Senate State & Local Government Committee, and Johnson is the Senate Majority Leader.

Presumably each one of these senators know how to read and understand legislation. Each one of these Senate leaders should be questioned about their support for a bill that would have the state of Tennessee knowingly abet child smuggling and reward facilitating illegal immigration to the state.

Bo Watson – sen.bo.watson@capitol.tn.gov

Richard Briggs – sen.richard.briggs@capitol.tn.gov

Jack Johnson – sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov

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TN Must Stand Against Smuggling Unaccompanied Alien Children!

Since we can’t count on Congress to get this done, it will have to come from the state legislature. 

The federal government has known for decades that parents, other relatives and sponsors in the U.S. whether here legally or illegally, have been paying coyotes and other criminal entities to smuggle children to the border who then enter as unaccompanied alien children (UAC). But Congress is too dysfunctional (even when Republicans are in the majority), to do anything about it. State legislators on the other hand have the authority to effectively address the issue. Criminalizing child smuggling is a way that helps protect children, disincentivizes illegal immigration to the state, and makes it clear that the state government will not abet facilitating illegal immigration or turn a blind eye to anyone who does.

Ignoring this practice is unfair to the children and unfair to American citizens and legal immigrants.

Whether a person uses a child to help get them over the border more easily, albeit illegally, or pays a coyote to smuggle a child over the border to reunite with a “biological relative” who may themselves be illegally in the country, using children in this way must stop. 

The first situation was sickeningly and tragically illustrated in a recent case of a 2-year old abandoned on the highway by his father with whom he was traveling. According to the mother, the toddler would make it easier for his father to get across the border – “‘they were going through like this with minors…”’ 

2-year old abandoned by his father and the coyote; toddlers (parents in the U.S.) dropped over the wall

While Tennessee’s state legislators can’t do much about the first scenario, they do have the authority to address the situation (like the toddlers) where someone in Tennessee facilitates the smuggling of a child who will cross the border illegally as a UAC and eventually reunite with a family member or sponsor in the state.

During the General Assembly’s first Joint Study Committee on June 18, 2021, Rep. Ryan Williams (R-  Cookeville), raised an important issue relative to the UAC arrivals in Tennessee. In fact, Tennessee’s GOP Congressional delegation should also pay attention to what Rep. Williams had to say.

Williams talked about his constituent who had travelled to another state to pick up his adoptive child. But before he was able to legally bring his child home to Tennessee, he needed Williams to help him get the paperwork required by the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children corrected. This paperwork creates additional hurdles that must be satisfied before being able to legally bring a minor child across state lines and if not followed to the letter of the law, it can jeopardize the adoption.

BTW, Williams came through for this family.

So here’s the point – an illegal alien living in Tennessee can facilitate the smuggling of a child to the U.S. border without any penalty – federal or state. But a U.S. citizen or legal immigrant  can be penalized if paperwork is faulty? The issue has nothing to do with whether there is a biological connection between the adoptive parent and the child or the smuggling facilitator and the child. It’s about complying with the law.

It’s important to note that smuggling is not the same as trafficking. Human smuggling is defined as:

“the importation of people into the United States involving deliberate evasion of immigration laws. This offense includes bringing illegal aliens into the United States as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of aliens already in the United States.”

Trafficking on the other hand, is about the exploitation of people using force, fraud or coercion for a sought after objective. It can include for example, sex trafficking, debt bondage and involuntary servitude.

Lt. Gov. McNally and Speaker Sexton are so concerned about Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being ferried into Tennessee, that they authorized a joint legislative committee to look into the issue; presumably with some intent to determine legislative options in response.

The committee has already held one meeting and has another scheduled for July 13th providing a platform for Blackburn and Hagerty’s offices to wave their consultation bill around and yack about the importance of “transparency”. 

Blackburn’s been in Congress long enough to know that bringing home a “transparency” bill with the laughable “consultation” provision which is legislator talk-speak for sounds good, doesn’t really do anything of consequence to address the problem at home. Shows you how little Hagerty understands that he just obediently tags along after Marsha. 

And like Mark Green’s new UAC bill, Blackburn and Hagerty appear to be unwilling to take on the child smuggling problem. Green’s bill allows a child smuggled over the border to override the governor’s veto regarding UAC placements in Tennessee. And the “biological relative” in his bill can also be an illegal alien.

Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), who is on the Joint Study Committee, has said he doesn’t want the Chattanooga facility to reopen or any other facility like it to open in Tennessee. Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga), who is also on the Joint Committee, has made it clear that he wants more of these children brought to Tennessee so they can be reunited with “loved ones”. As it turns out, UAC smuggling is more often than not, financed by the parents who themselves are in the U.S. in violation of the immigration laws.

Only time will tell whether the Joint Study Committee is a pro forma or whether state legislators are serious about trying to address the problem. If instead they insist that “immigration is a federal issue” then remind them that 2022 is just around the corner and it looks like that four of the Senate members on the Joint Committee could potentially face a primary if necessary.

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Useless Bills on UACs Arriving in Tennessee

There’s the Bill who as the chief executive of the state government either doesn’t have a clue what is going on in his administration or what his politically appointed commissioner is doing to facilitate the welcoming of the arrival of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) who were smuggled into the U.S. illegally more often than not, by parents who are also here illegally. But more than likely, and from all indications, he’s actually known all along.

Haslam feigned the same surprise about UAC arrivals during the 2014 surge. And we all know that Haslam was okay with illegal immigration going so far as to try finishing his run as governor by giving illegal alien students the parting gift of in-state college tuition.

The other useless bills are the ones being filed by Tennessee’s U.S. Congressmen who also have no clue what’s going on in the state they represent .

Blackburn, Hagerty and Fleischmann are giving each other high fives for quickly filing a bill that makes it look like they are doing something to address the arrival of the UACs.

Maybe someday the “Migrant Resettlement Transparency Act” will get yet another untimely after-the-fact federal report published but their bill is both unlikely to see the light of day and is highly unlikely to stop federal dumping of illegal aliens in Tennessee. Tim Burchett is a co-sponsor of Fleischmann’s bill.

The trio insist that before the federal government transports more UAC illegal aliens into Tennessee, details about the kids must be disclosed and that the “Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security consult with governors and mayors of affected jurisdictions before any federally directed, administered or funded resettlement, transportation, or relocation of illegal aliens”. 

Consult ? A completely meaningless standard. Consult is the same requirement in the Refugee Act of 1980, which simply means that the federal government tells the state what the federal government intends to do but the state has no option to stop the federal government from doing what they told the state they would do. Consult means like when the Biden administration asked Bill Lee’s office if Tennessee would open an emergency shelter for UACs and Lee said no, but not to worry, because his administration had already approved the Baptiste Group in Chattanooga to take care of the problem.

Let’s imagine the consultation with comrades Nashville Mayor John Cooper and Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon:

Feds: Buenos días mayor. Have you talked to the parents who want their children brought to them? Do you have the list and can you tell us how many children we will be transporting? Are the parents all paid up with the coyotes or are you covering the cost?

Mayors: We are all set to go here! We assured the parents that it doesn’t matter if they are also here illegally because we at least can say we are good Christians and that always trumps lawbreaking.

Then there’s Mark Green’s new bill which he’s using to try and recover from his first UAC bill disaster. In a recent interview, Green still insists that UACs are refugees even though the law is clear that UACS don’t magically get converted into refugees just because the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement takes custody.

“Making those guys be classified as migrants keeps the legal status in a way that the federal government can’t force them on Tennessee.”

What is Green talking about? The UACs already have a status and it’s called illegal. The federal code, as in U.S. law, clearly states that UACs have “no lawful immigration status in the United States” – they are illegal aliens! There is no “automatic refugee status” as Green claims. Even funnier is that a Tennessean reporter gets that as Green admits, his bill still lets DHS house UACs in HHS contracted facilities like the one run by Baptiste Group in Chattanooga.

So while Hagerty, Blackburn, Fleischmann and Green try to out-UAC each other, they continue to ignore the growing adult worker illegal alien population in Tennessee which is a MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM. Just take a look at the numbers reported by Customs & Border Protection and see how much cheap labor Republicans protect for their big dollar cronies. 

And why aren’t they talking about what Biden and his DOJ are doing to make asylum more easily and more widely available? Shortly after taking office Biden issued an executive order directing the new Attorney General Garland to put new regulations in place to undo the multiple ways in which the Trump administration tightened some of the vaguest and most flexible standards for getting asylum including based on domestic violence and family relationships. So now, “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” can once again be used as a reason to be granted asylum.

As Julie Kirchner who writes the Immigration Journal points out, the “dramatic” asylum changes are coming at the same time that the Biden administration will be rescinding the Title 42 public health authority which the Trump administration used to turn people back from the border. Once Biden pushes these and other changes through, loosening and opening all avenues to enable pretty much any illegal alien to enter and stay in the U.S., all this GOP yakking about transparency and reclassifying UACs, will prove meaningless. Check out these numbers from CBP:

 

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Why Isn’t Tennessee Helping to Fight the Border Battle?

It’s not as if illegal aliens crossing Biden’s open border aren’t settling in Tennessee.

Last week Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton spent a half hour talking with Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian, about everything his state is doing to push back against Biden’s open border for illegal immigration.

Paxton is an AG who understands the value of lawfare and that states cannot remain complacent indentured servants to the federal government. To date, Paxton’s office has filed five lawsuits challenging the Biden administration on immigration actions.

Tennessee’s AG Herb Slatery on the other hand, appears to be sitting out the fight which is easier to get away with when you don’t have to answer to the voters. Texas and forty-two other states, unlike Tennessee, elect their AG. And the Tennessee General Assembly isn’t willing to give that power to voters.

Viewed through the laissez-faire illegal immigration lens of Tennessee’s AG and the lack of legislative enthusiasm for insisting that every business in Tennessee use E-verify to help avoid employing illegal aliens, why should we expect anything else.

Add to this that Haslam, who campaigned opposing illegal immigration ending up endorsing actions that encouraged more illegal immigration to the state. For example, in the waning years of Haslam’s second term when he thankfully was going to not be the governor anymore, he was pushing in-state tuition for illegal alien students. Did he stop to even question how many came as UACs (unaccompanied alien children)? Then he cowardly refused to sign the anti-sanctuary city bill that Tennessee needed to make the law effective.

That bill became law without his signature anyway.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xQxqgJxAgY

When it comes to the UACs crossing the border illegally and arriving in Tennessee, Bill Lee can deny any and all knowledge about it til the cows come home but good luck to him putting a credible spin on the paperwork which the Times Free Press reporter diligently unearthed and which makes Lee look like a ____(feel free to fill in the blank yourself).

So far according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data which is only current to April 2021, Tennessee has received 1,111 putting the state in the top ten receiving states. The same data which only tracks counties that receive 50 or more UACs shows the following county numbers – Davidson – 436, Shelby – 213, Hamilton – 99, Knox – 53, Rutherford – 71, Sevier – 51.

U.S. Customs & Border Protection data for the total number of illegal border crossers in the current fiscal year, including family units, accompanied minors, single adults and UACs current to May totals 929,868 individuals. The UAC totals current to May are 79,948 crossing illegally.

By the end of March 2021, the latest data available, 2,946 UACs were released to a parent or step-parent in the U.S. and another 2,991 UACs were released to a relative (see category definitions here).

According to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, HHS data from 2018-2019 shows 79% of these sponsors were “without status” – that means here illegally.

If you have any doubt, read this April story: 

“Lorena, a Guatemalan mother living in Atlanta, recalls getting a 4:25 a.m. call from her teenage daughters on March 12, a day after they’d crossed into the United States. The girls had borrowed a hidden cellphone from another teen being held in a packed Border Patrol tent in Texas. ‘We’re here,’ said Nancy, 16, crying. ‘When can you come get us?’ That was more than a month ago. The girls were transferred to a makeshift shelter at a San Diego convention center, where the younger daughter – Britney, 15 – became sick with covid-19. ‘I just want them to give me my daughters,’ said Lorena, who wanted her last name withheld because she came to the United States illegally.

Lorena left her daughters with her mother in their rural village outside the city of Huehuetenango more than a decade ago, soon after splitting up with their father.

She earns $14 an hour in a carpet factory in Atlanta, and lives with her 4-year-old U.S.-born son, a brother her daughters have never met. When the eldest began showing symptoms of acute anxiety and a sense of abandonment, Lorena decided the time had come for them to join her in Atlanta.

In November, she paid a smuggler $5,000 to bring the two girls to the Mexican border where they could surrender to U.S. agents. The Trump administration used an emergency health order to deny the girls’ release into the United States and flew them back to Guatemala.

Lorena paid smugglers $5,000 again in February. The Biden administration has pledged to no longer return minors to their home countries, so the girls were allowed in. Lorena said she is filling out all the paperwork, but she’s scared to travel to San Diego because her Guatemalan passport is her only legal identification.”

Human smuggling much? Apparently it’s the best known non-secret in Congress. Even Reuter’s is writing about it.

Are passive states like Tennessee complicit? Are passive federal and state legislators complicit?

And it’s not just people from Mexico and Latin America.

Both Haslam and Lee have feigned shock and surprise upon “discovering” that UACs were being delivered to parents and other relatives living in Tennessee. Surely these governors know that the illegal alien population has been growing for some time in Tennessee. Will Bill Lee pretend he doesn’t know about this either? 

Tennessee’s AG is super soft on illegal immigration going so far as to advocate for amnesty for the “dreamers” after meeting with the director from the TN Immigrant & Refugees Rights Coalition. When was the last time the AG asked your opinion about endorsing illegal immigration?

If your state legislator tells you there’s nothing the state can do about illegal immigration because it’s all in the hands of the federal government, suggest this – take back the $7.3 million dollar grant the state handed over to Catholic Charities of Tennessee to spread their operations into more counties and instead, send it to Texas to help build the wall. 

It’s the least our state elected officials can do.

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Every TN State Legislator Should Have to Watch this Video

Ten state Republicans, five from the House and five from the Senate have been chosen to serve on a joint task force to examine the issue of the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being transported to and housed in a federally contracted facility. The trafficking of these minor children is being abetted by the pastor of the church which has leased its property to the federal contractor identified as the Baptiste Group.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire who was appointed to serve on the task force has made it clear that he wants more of these children brought to Tennessee so they can be reunited with “loved ones”.

This past March, very disturbing video from the border was captured and posted showing exactly what happens to these children at the hands of the human traffickers often paid by the parents and other “loved ones” to smuggle the children across the border, or in the case of the three and five- year old sisters in the video, have them literally dropped over the 14-ft. border wall and left to fend for themselves until rescued by border patrol.

The story of these two toddlers is made worse yet with the admission that their parents who are already in the U.S. and likely here illegally themselves, paid the coyotes and entrusted these strangers with their very young children. Fortunately, border patrol rescued these children.

Every Tennessee legislator and in particular, Gardenhire needs to see this video before they start yammering about welcoming these children and creating the incentive for children to be trafficked. And for sure, they need to watch this video before they start moralizing to American citizens and legal immigrants about supporting the smuggling pipeline.  

At the very least, make sure you send the video to your state legislators and especially the ten appointed to the task force. The ten are:

Senators – Dawn White, Todd Gardenhire, Ed Jackson, Richard Brigss and Bo Watson; House Reps – Chris Todd, Dan Howell, Scotty Campbell, Bruce Griffey, and Ryan Williams.

 

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Bill Lee and Todd Gardenhire – The Foxes Guarding Our Immigration Hen House

It’s bad enough that Bill Lee wants more legal immigration to Tennessee in the form of refugee resettlement. Never mind that it forces state taxpayers to pay both the state and federal cost of the voluntary federal program. Never mind that it violates the Tenth Amendment. And, never mind that it illegally usurps the exclusive power of the state legislature to appropriate state funds, and these aren’t even the worst aspects of Bill Lee’s avid support for the federal program. 

Even more odious, is Todd Gardenhire’s push for more illegal immigration to Tennessee even if it means encouraging more human smuggling and trafficking of children 18 years old and younger which is more often than not, financed by the parents who themselves are in the U.S. in violation of the immigration laws.

Gardenhire has long been a cheerleader for illegal immigration to Tennessee going so far as to adopt the left’s politically deceptive label of “undocumented” instead of the accurate statutory label of illegal alien. 

Gardenhire has tried four times to magnetize the state by rewarding illegal alien students with taxpayer subsidized in-state college tuition. When he couldn’t get his first bill passed, he tried rewarding the recipients of Obama’s unconstitutional DACA program with in-state college tuition. And when that failed, he tried broadening the scope of his next bill to cover UACs – Unaccompanied Alien Children who generate huge profits for the cartels and other human smugglers. The UACs enter the country illegally and Gardenhire believes they are the model students Tennessee taxpayers should support. 

Sen. Todd Gardenhire

Gardenhire is so enamoured of the illegal population in his district that he publicly denigrated families of White and African American children who he said don’t get involved in their kids’ education. Speaking in the context of a 2018 bill that dealt with illegal immigrants, Gardenhire all but admitted that the “enormous amount” of Latino parents in his district are illegal aliens. As he said:

“In my district we have an enormous amount of Latino students. Let’s just get right down to the chase of it. We have an enormous amount of Latino students and these parents want to be involved. They’re involved more than any other segment of the population are. And if we exclude them because they can’t show some ID [identifying them as legal] and get into the building and participate, we’re doing the students and the teachers and the principals a disservice….If you go to East Ridge High School in Chattanooga and you go to the parents that come involved, it’s not the White parents that show up to be with the kids, it’s not the African American parents that show up with the kids. It’s Latino parents that want to show up and be with their kids and be with the teachers and find out the best way to get educated.” 

Someone in Gardenhire’s district should ask him about 16-year old UAC Edwin Mejia who entered illegally from Honduras and was reunited with his brother, also an illegal alien, living in Madison, Tennessee, just north of Nashville. Gardenhire’s UAC Mejia was drag racing drunk in Nebraska when he killed a U.S. citizen college graduate who was out celebrating her accomplishment.

In his op-ed Gardenhire says he wants the joint study committee to focus on facts and not “get caught up” in the politics which are swirling around the unprecedented surge of illegal UAC border crossers. Yet, Gardenhire self-righteously uses his participation on a church mission trip to Chiapas to try and shame other Christians into supporting and paying for illegal immigration. 

How very leftist of him.

Gardenhire also accuses those who unlike himself, are bigots who don’t care about other people like the Cambodians who were resettled in Chattanooga. The Cambodians, however, were neither smuggled nor trafficked by their “loved ones” but were legally admitted by the U.S. government. 

While announcing his appointment to the House-Senate joint study committee created in the wake of news reports about the UAC arrivals in Chattanooga, the arrogant Gardenhire throws shade on Bill Lee, Senators Hagerty and Blackburn, and Reps. Green and Fleischmann, for being clueless about what is going on in their state and using the UAC issue for political posturing.

Gardenhire says the focus of the joint committee should be on “just the facts.” First fact for Gardenhire is to acknowledge to the legal citizens and legal immigrants living and working in Tennessee who pay his salary and healthcare benefits, that the UACs are illegal aliens and start using the correct and accurate statutory terms. He is a lawmaker after all.

Gardenhire is one of ten Republicans that make up the newly announced joint study committee. Tennesseans can only hope that the remaining nine committee members understand that the facts related to the UACs and illegal immigration overall, do not benefit the state or those living and working here legally.

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Is Mark Green Conflating Illegal Aliens With Refugees?

It’s anybody’s best guess why Green’s explanation of his bill, H.R.3500, doesn’t match what he’s telling folks it’s supposed to do.

Green’s press release about his new bill, “Leads Fight to Block Refugee Resettlement Without State Consent” states in part:

“Last week, in the dead of night, unaccompanied migrant children were flown into Tennessee without our approval or consent. I am alarmed that the Biden Administration would use taxpayer resources to transport refugees into Tennessee without transparency or coordination with state authorities. This overreach and secrecy has to stop.”

In a recent interview with WRCBtv Chattanooga, Green said that he drafted the bill in response to what happened in Chattanooga and that “this bill would mandate permission of the state before they move illegal migrants to Tennessee.”

One really obvious problem is that U.S. law recognizes refugees as legal immigrants who enter the country with express permission of the U.S. government in conformance to specific criteria in U.S. law defining who is a refugee.

The “illegal migrants” Green refers to are Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) who are either dumped at the border by human traffickers or like 16-year old killer Edwin Mejia who was sent to his illegal alien brother in Tennessee, cross the border on their own.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) which refers to itself as Congress’ “think tank” writes, “[u]naccompanied alien children are statutorily defined as children who lack lawful immigration status in the United States, are under age 18, and lack a parent or legal guardian in the United States or a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody.”

If the UAC is from a contiguous country, meaning Canada or Mexico and is not a victim of trafficking, Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) can send them back. If however, the UAC is from a non-contiguous country, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) takes custody. These UACs can apply for asylum or other relief like the Special Immigrant Juvenile Visa (SIJV) which allows them to remain in the U.S. and puts them on a path to citizenship.

Unlike refugees who are legally admissible to the U.S. before they arrive, UACs are subject to removal until and only if they end up with a legal immigration status.

Importantly, the transfer to ORR custody does not in any way convert the UAC into a refugee. In 2002, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act which did many things including moving custody of the UACs from the former Immigration & Naturalization Services to ORR. This change evolved from a series of lawsuits and consent decrees but did not magically make UACs refugees.

An April 2021 CRS paper notes that “[a]ccording to CBP data, almost all apprehended UAC originate from Mexico and the ‘Northern Triangle’ countries – Honduras, ElSalvador, and Guatemala” and that up until FY19 most UACs were coming from Mexico but then flipped to 86% coming from the Northern Triangle countries.

This is a very important data point relating to Green’s bill. Whether he realizes it or not, the way he explains his bill’s purpose is precisely what the Obama administration tried to do in 2014, with the Central American Minors (CAM) program to administratively expand U.S. law on refugees and create a refugee resettlement program for this group. Refugees and asylees must show persecution on account of membership in certain groups, such as nationality or race. The CAM program allowed the ill-defined “particular social group” category to be applicable for various new conditions, such as single motherhood. If it were to be applied system-wide to refugee resettlement it would represent the largest expansion of the definition of the term “refugee” ever seen in the history of the resettlement program. 

 As Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry said:

“I am pleased to announce that we have plans to expand the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in order to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and offer them a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous journey that many are tempted to begin, making them at that instant easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.”

Trump ended the CAM program in 2017. 

Looking at Obama’s attempt to expand who qualifies as a refugee, Center for Immigration Studies senior researcher Dr. Nayla Rush questioned whether Central American children even meet the legal definition of refugee. She makes the following points :

    • “the UN says most are not refugees” 
    • the Migration Policy Institute* appears to agree that – “…being forced to join a gang or experiencing violence do not generally qualify as a basis for refugee status or fall readily into one the the [U.S. law] refugee definition categories.”
    • out of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world in 2015 (excluding those undergoing a war), four are in the United States: St Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans.25 Latin America, it is true, remains far ahead, with 41 cities included in the ranking. But are children who flee gang violence in St. Louis, Baltimore, or the other American cities that made it into the top of the most dangerous cities chart ‘potential refugees’? No one would even think to make that claim. 

One of the problems with Obama’s CAM program was that the parent had to be in the U.S. legally to obtain the coveted refugee status for  their child in Central America. In fact, many of the parents in the CAM program are themselves illegal aliens. 

In her conclusion Rush lets the real genie out of the bottle – it’s the children who, if they obtain refugee status, offer the route through which parents and siblings may obtain legal status in the U.S.

The libertarian Niskanen Center think tank also acknowledges that UACs are ineligible for refugee status. They argue that UACs could get refugee status if U.S. law would expand to include forced conscription, gang recruitment and gender discrimination.

It is a very real possibility that the Biden administration will like Obama, use administrative actions to expand who qualifies as a refugee. This is precisely how the U.S. refugee admissions program under Obama created the resettlement program for the LGBT refugee. 

Green’s bill and his explanation of its purpose confuse UACs with refugees – precisely what Obama and the open border leftists want and the reason they categorize every illegal alien as a “refugee”. 

Even if Green is trying to “cleverly” pre-empt a move by the Biden administration to recreate an Obamaesque CAM program, the mandate that “States Have a Say” will fall on deaf ears for the majority of Republican governors who turned down President Trump’s refugee resettlement opt out in 2019.

 

The plain language of Green’s bill says it will amend 8 USC 1522 – the section of federal law that addresses refugee admissions and which by reference to another section of the code, defines the legal term “refugee” – a term which does not include Green’s “illegal migrants”.

Even assuming Green is relying on the language of Trump’s presidential determination on refugee admissions for FY2021, UACs would still have to meet specific criteria to qualify as a refugee.

All of the legal mumbo jumbo aside, what Tennessee taxpayers should really be concerned about with Green conflating UACs and  refugee resettlement, is the lessons learned from Tennessee’s 10th Amendment challenge to the federal resettlement program. The big take-aways simply put are:

    • upon arrival to the U.S. refugees are immediately able to access all forms of public assistance  on the same basis as U.S. citizens
    • refugees must adjust their status to legal permanent resident (green card) status at year one after admission
    • the federal government has admitted that it shifts the massive cost of this program to state governments
    • and, BILL LEE HAS PASSIONATELY DEFENDED BRINGING MORE REFUGEES TO TENNESSEE 

If one accepts Green’s explanation of his bill, then any objection voiced by Bill Lee to the UACs should be questioned. When Trump gave Lee the choice to say “no” to continued refugee resettlement in Tennessee, Lee abandoned the state’s sovereignty in favor of his personal agenda regarding refugees. Then when he was challenged on his decision, he doubled down and in contravention of Trump’s Executive Order, claimed he had the authority to consent to refugee resettlement for the entire state.

Tennessee’s Lt. Governor and Speaker of the House have decided to convene a joint study committee prompted by the delivery of UACs to the state. Lt. Gov. McNally’s office issued a press release about the joint study committee and seems to be the lone voice at this time that understands that refugees, migrants and immigrants are not all the same and have different immigration statuses.

As a first, they need to change the name of the study committee from the misnomered “Joint Study Committee on Refugee Issues” to the more accurate “Joint Study Committee on Refugees, Illegal Aliens, Migrants & Immigrants”.

And as seems to have become the norm, the news about what the Lee administration’s role in another mishandled and mangled state government function, is not good. It seems that another one of Lee’s departments may have facilitated the arrival of the UACs. Some reports suggest that Lee’s Department of Children’s Services knew and approved that the Chattanooga facility applying for a state license was “to provide housing, personal care, supervision and monitoring to up to 100 unaccompanied minor children . . . ideally up to 30 days, until they are reunited with a sponsor home or appear at an immigration hearing.”

Sounds just like the set-up to receive and care for UACs.

If this report is accurate, Lee put some big egg on the faces of every Tennessee U.S. and state elected official yelling for transparency.

At the very least, we can only hope that the new joint study committee looks to real experts in the field on these issues. As for Mark Green, he should take a cue from the Lt. Governor and get some help from experts like Dr. Rush and figure out what he’s really trying to do with his bill. 

For starters though, Green should stop advancing the idea that there is a legitimate connection between illegally entering UACs and refugees and would do well to recall the multiple documented instances when MS-13 gang members entered the U.S. as UACs and were then awarded with refugee status – here, here and here. This should be of paramount concern now that under Biden, USCIS will stop asking about gang-related information when evaluating adjustment to legal permanent resident, aka, the green card which UACs who are awarded either asylum or the SIJV status are eligible to apply for.

At the very least, Green’s voters should expect an informed discussion of the issue.

***********************************************

*”The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is 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. Migration Policy Institute receives funding from a variety of left-of-center ideological funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.”

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Jew-Hating Demonstrators Alive & Well in Tennessee

Liora Rez, Executive director of StopAntisemitism.org puts it simply – “wherever anti-Zionism goes, anti-Semitism quickly follows.”

Nakba Day marches are now occurring across the country. ’Nakba’ is translated as “the catastrophe” and is what Palestinians label the reestablishment of the State of Israel. For anti-Israel agitators nakba day marks the supposed Zionist conspiracy to ethnically cleanse Palestine when the State of Israel was established. Not so; “[i]n reality, Nakba Day is a gross misrepresentation of history. The [Palestinian] refugees were created by the Arab Muslim desire to wage Jihad against the Jews.”

One anti-Israel protest march joined by the Nashville Peace & Justice Center (NPJC) was held in downtown Nashville on Wednesday, May 12; another organized by the Democratic Socialist of America was held in Knoxville on Saturday the 15th, and another is scheduled in Nashville for Saturday, May 21st. This one is being organized under the Samidoun umbrella by students from MTSU; NPJC is promoting it as well. These protests are not the first to take place in Tennessee, they are simply getting larger.

In 2014, Marxist Ash-Lee Henderson’s intersectionally-based anti-Jew protest was held in Chattanooga when she was an organizer with Concerned Citizens for Justice, a self-identified black liberation organization. “’We recognize that there is total intersection between what is happening to the Palestinian community overseas and what has happened with apartheid and Jim Crow to people who identify as African-American,’” said Ash-Lee Henderson, an organizer with Concerned Citizens for Justice.”

At the same time, Drost Kokoye, a co-founder and board member of Tennessee’s AMAC (American Muslim Advisory Council), in collaboration with the NPJC, led an anti-Israel counter-protest across the barricade from a pro-Israel rally.

Daoud Abudiab, another co-founder of AMAC and its first chairman, is a fellow traveler of Israel haters. Trying hard to portray himself as an interfaither with the singular agenda of creating a positive impression of Muslims through his “Our Muslim Neighbor,” (a project of Religions for Peace USA, an organization itself tied to Muslim Brotherhood organizations), Abudiab launched his Faith and Culture Center in 2014. Then his Center joined Nashville’s leftist collective to strategize with the emerging local BLM chapter. That was the same year that BLM leaders traveled to “occupied Palestine” and publicly announced their support for the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Coming out of the closet in his own way, Abudiab joined the Muslim Brotherhood organizations at the inaugural USCMO conference the same year the USCMO issued its “Washington Declaration”, an initiative intended to unite a globalized Islamist political force. The USCMO was founded by every major U.S.-based Jew-hating organization including CAIR, AMP (BDS leader American Muslims for Palestine), MAS – the Muslim American Society whose founder admitted that his organization was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following his attendance at the USCMO conference, Abudiab amplified his anti-Israelism by choosing to support FOSNA’s (Friends of Sabeel North America) agenda. FOSNA attacks Christian Zionism, promotes the BDS campaign against Israel, and has teamed up with Black 4 Palestine to bring black churches and clergy into their Israel and Jew hate efforts.

FOSNA remains on the Anti-Defamation League’s top ten list of anti-Israel organizations in the U.S.

In 2015, Daoud Abudiab chose to speak at FOSNA’s 2015 conference which in the course of pretending to be focused on a “struggle for a just peace” offered a panel discussion on BDS, a key component of which is right of return for alleged Palestinian refugees.

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS campaign made it clear in 2010, and again, more recently, that the goal of BDS and return of alleged Palestinian refugees, is to eliminate Israel. He expressly rejects a two-state solution and says that a Palestinian right of return is the way to end Israel as a Jewish state.

Not long after joining up with FOSNA, Abudiab shared his Israel animus on facebook. He posted an article titled Court Says Israel Owns Jaffa House Because Arab Family Members Left in 1948, along with his comment – “injustice ignored is never forgotten. What goes around comes around one day!”

That day arrived this week based in part on the excuse of Israel’s Supreme Court preparing to hear an appeal in a dispute over four houses in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem. Much like the housing dispute case posted by Abudiab, the Sheik Jarrah cases are “not about forcing [Palestinian-Arab] families from their home. [Sheik Jarrah] involves a years-long process of owners suing tenants whose leases have expired, or in a few cases, suing squatters with no tenancy rights at all; the owners are simply asking for their rent to be paid.”

Neither the timing of the “religion of peace” Ramadan period nor the truth about the housing dispute stopped Hamas and Arabs unprovoked violence against Jews. Hamas fired over a thousand missiles and rockets into Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Beersheba, Ashkelon, communities bordering on Gaza, killing Israeli citizens, wounding many others, destroying properties, setting the Trans-Israel pipeline on fire and terrorizing countless Israelis. On Monday, Hamas managed to kill 17 Palestinians with their own rockets falling short and landing in Gaza.

Along with the unprovoked missile attacks there was an escalation in Arab pogroms in Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, Bat Yam, Haifa, and Tiberias, destroying Jewish properties and setting fire to multiple synagogues, attacking worshipers at the Western Wall with rocks, and attempting to lynch Jewish motorists.

Back in Nashville, The Tennessean paper published a factless and arrogant op-ed about the violence in Israel and the “destruction of sacred places” written by Imam Ossama Bahloul resident scholar at the Islamic Center of Nashville. For example, Bahloul suggests that “Jewish settlers” have caused violence at the Al Aqsa mosque while deliberately ignoring the attack on Jerusalem Day celebrants with “slabs, stones and fireworks” which had been stockpiled by Palestinians at the Al Aqsa mosque for this purpose:

“Critics of Israel, and the international media, have portrayed the recent clashes on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call Haram esh-Sharif, as if Israel had attacked the mosques or violated their sanctity. In fact, Israeli riot police entered the holy site to stop Palestinians from launching new attacks from the compound after they did so after prayers on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan last week.”

2009 Murfreesboro – Bahloul protesting “war in Gaza’ in support of Hamas

Will biased media, revisionist history narratives and irrational hatred of Jews and Israel make certain places in Tennessee less safe for Jewish people? Jewish people are being openly attacked by pro-Palestinian thugs shouting Allah Akbar and BLM rioters have targeted Jewish neighborhoods. In Tennessee, AMAC’s program attacking Zionism didn’t hesitate to feature Highlander Center director Ash-Lee Henderson who is all in with BLM anti-Semitism.

How far do they plan to take it in Tennessee?

AMAC attacks Zionism
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Why Would TN House Republicans Vote to Denigrate Patriotic Conservative Christians?

It’s no surprise that House Democrats would vote to denigrate Tennessee conservative Christians who  love their country. But what does it say about the House Republicans who voted in agreement? 

Rep. G.A. Hardaway, a Memphis Democrat, was the Chief sponsor of HR110, a resolution to recognize Rev.Dr. William J. Barber II.

Rev.William J. Barber II

Hardway, described the honorific as embodying Barber’s five “interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy and militarism, ecological devastation, and the false moral narrative of Christian nationalism.”

Not included in the resolution was Barber’s 2013 participation at the Tennessee Highlander Center meeting about how to resist what the assembled group described as the “extreme agenda” being pushed by Republicans.

The resolution failed; only 28 voted yes, 35 voted no, and 20 were either too confused, uninformed, or squeamish, and simply abstained.

Predictably, all 23 Democrats present voted for the resolution; they were joined by 5 Republicans – Reps. Jeremy Faison, William Lamberth, Tandy Darby, Bob Ramsey and Kevin Vaughn.

Faison and Lamberth are part of the House leadership.

 Before the vote, when Rep. Mark Cochran (R-Englewood) questioned what was meant specifically by the term “false moral narrative of Christian nationalism” sponsor Hardaway responded that “there is a Christian nationalism Dr. Barber observes some of those narratives as not being in line with his way of thinking” and why he developed his moral budget ad his moral agenda.

Barber’s Christian nationalism explained by the academic experts

Barber has been understood to use the terms “Christian nationalism,” “religious nationalism” and “white religious nationalism” interchangeably.

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.

Based on the professors’ national survey questions and responses, “Christian nationalism” is a cultural framework used to refer to white Christians, particularly evangelicals, who say that the U.S. was founded on Christianity and therefore must remain a Christian nation. The authors describe “Christian nationalism” as a form of Christianity “that isn’t just about religion, but is a racialized view of America which “‘includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism’” which dominate the political views of the subset surveyed.

But, as they explain, Black Christians get a pass because blacks haven’t been in power and as such, their version of Christian nationalism is more progressive and about a nation that has never lived up to its professing Christian identity.

The two sociologists claim that their national survey results show that people high on the Christian nationalism rating scale tend to be much more opposed to gun control, are much more xenophobic or racist and define being an American as being white and Christian. Worse still, the white version of Christian nationalism is “connected [to] and it connects all these negative ideologies.”

As used by Barber, Christian nationalism is white and its supremacist. Some of Barber’s examples of the “false moral narrative of Christian nationalism” is exemplified by Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell who don’t “promote the faith from the biblical foundations of love, truth and justice.” Instead, they are part of the “unholy connection” where “[r]eligion is being used as the cover for greed. The term ‘‘evangelical’’ has been hijacked in favor of corporate interests.”  

According to the methodology used by Whitehead and Perry to determine what Christian nationalism means, looks like and implies for the U.S., a phrase like “in God we trust” could be considered a Christian nationalism dog whistle.

What’s obvious is that Barber’s five “interlocking injustices” that form the basis of his moral budget and moral agenda align perfectly with the Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) policy platform and the agenda of BLM.

Barber also rallies against Israel and “Trumpvangelicals”

Barber’s speech at the 2018 anti-Israel U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) national conference affirmed his view that Israel is an apartheid state and that “historically, it is important for us to remember that one path regarding the Zionism project in Palestine was a colonialist project from the beginning…[i]t was  never just purely about righting the terrible wrongs of the Holocaust. But for [Britain’s great colonialist] it was about expanding a global empire.”

Not surprisingly, Barber’s comments align with the whole Christian nationalism narrative which is primarily directed at evangelical Christians who tend to be committed advocates for Israel. It also aligns perfectly with both the M4BL and BLM anti-Israel positions and their promotion of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

By no coincidence, the USCPR has endorsed M4BL’s policy platforms.

William J. Barber II reveals what he really means when he uses the slur of Christian nationalism came at the close of his speech:

“In this moment when Trumpvangelicals have linked up with Zionist extremists and the corporate facism of white nationalists around the world, it may seem like [the USCPR’s] goal of Palestinian rights is at a low point….The same corporate interests that used white nationalism to put Trump in the White House, and leaned into Zionist extremism to move the U.S. Embassy to Tel Aviv, also want to cut taxes for corporations, deregulate, ignore climate science, take away healthcare, deny living wages, cut the social safety net and give more and more money to the U,S. military. But here’s the good news: There are far more of us than there are of them. And, God have mercy, even some of them have joined us when we’ve come together in truth and love and mercy.”

If you voted for Trump, Barber was talking about you.
If you’re a white Evangelical Christian, Barber was talking about you.
If you believe our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and the need to stay true to those principles, Barber was talking about you.
And God forbid, if you support Israel, the sole democratic state in the Middle East, Barber was talking about you and it’s a double whammy if you also happen to be a Christian.

And what about the Barber5 Republicans who voted to honor Barber?

Rep. Bob Ramsey and Kevin Vaughn are illegal alien protectionists.

Rep. Jeremy Faison (chair, House Republican Caucus) – his vote to honor Barber is just one more reason that the House Republican Caucus needs a new chairman.

Rep. Tandy Darby – he’s new and his vote raises questions about him that will require monitoring.

Rep. William Lamberth – at best, his vote is confusing; contact him and ask him to explain – rep.william.lamberth@capitol.tn.gov

The sociologists who defined Christian nationalism say that white Americans who adhere to this ideology, see it almost as an ethnic identity with others who share their cultural values and who “look like them.”

Rep. Yusuf Hakeem (D-Chattanooga) who wants critical race theory (CRT) taught in Tennessee schools, admitted as much during the House Education discussion about HB580, the CRT bill:

“There are those and I’m among them who feel systemic racism is real. As an example of how our system has allowed one group of people see as superior and one inferior. I’m a member of the Christian church like many of you but I remember growing up and when I looked at God he didn’t look like me and I think that some people interpreted that as they were better because they looked like God and some people who looked like me did not. I think this should be cleared up by history, by standards, by what we teach.”

The Barber5 Republicans had already voted to ban the teaching of CRT in Tennessee public schools. How then did the Barber5 completely fail to understand that Barber’s Christian nationalism point of view is nothing more than camouflage for using the lens of CRT in all aspects of life?