Category: Refugee Resettlement

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Catholic Charities..Help for Refugees over Nashvillians.

 

Catholic Charities doesn’t care about Nashvillians  in need, but they do care about refugees and illegals. That’s right, the same Catholic Charities that received $7.3 million dollars from the bloated TANF fund (Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families) is the same organization sitting on over $100,000 meant to be distributed to those victims of the Nashville Christmas day bombing in 2020.

From September 2021 through March of 2022, Catholic Charities will help resettle over 150 Afghanis in the city of Nashville, the same city where many Nashvillians and businesses were displaced by a terrorist and need help to rebuild.  

In a recent tv interview between News Channel 4 and Ashley Bergeron, who lost her apartment and her art gallery, Bergeron states she needs help, and after one year of trying to make ends meet, she needs it now. Bergeron says she received a little over $3,200 that helped pay for things like her mortgage and utility bills, but those bills haven’t gone away. “Now that its been almost a year I’m now realizing okay wow, I’m going to need to ask for some more support,” said Bergeron.

Almost a year after the bombing, Ashley Bergeron is still feeling the impact

 

 

 

 

 https://www.wsmv.com/news/investigations/one-year-later-christmas-day-bombing-survivors-still-struggle-financially-where-s-all-the-donated/article_746f9e02-63f7-11ec-ba25-aff5cb8f7697.html?block_id=994460

Why is it Nashvillians are not receiving the assistance they need? Judy Orr, the executive director of Catholic Charities says “What we try to do is take care of the most immediate needs. If someone were to come forward now with additional expenses all of those would be considered.” Considered? Seriously?

 So what does CC bring to the table when refugees are involved? Afghans receive 30 to 90 days of assistance, case management and $1,225 per individual. Per individual. So for a family of lets say 4 that is $4900, $1700 over what Nashvillian Bergeron was given. But wait, the Afghan refugees, according to Kellye Branson, director of Refugee and Immigration Services for CC, will also receive  housing complete with furnishings, Social Security cards, enrolling their kids in school , and following up on any medical needs or mental health needs they might have.  Gee..did those suffering from the Nashville 2020 Christmas day bombing get that help and service?

Executive Director Judy Orr

 The bottom line is $950,000 was forked over to The United Way and The Community Foundation in Nashville, in addition to a $2 million grant.  The question begs to be asked where is the money for those Nashvillians?  Perhaps it is time for donations to be given elsewhere rather than large wealthy non profits. Catholic Charities may imply they are religious, and a charity, however it looks more like refugees and illegals are more profitable for them rather than those in their own backyard.

 

 

 

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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. 

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State Licensed Bethany Christian Services in Nashville Provides Foster Care to UACs

Why hasn’t Bethany Christian been asked to testify to the Tennessee Joint Study Committee on Refugees whose charge is to address the situation with UAC arrivals to the state? Why is this organization being shielded from legislative and administrative scrutiny?

Tennessee’s Dept. of Children’s Services (DCS) has known or should have known all along that they licensed Bethany Christian Services to provide foster care services to UACs* arriving in Tennessee.

Recall, that DCS was grilled by the Joint Study Committee over their licensing of the Baptiste Group, a federal contractor which was providing housing and other services to UACs in Chattanooga.

Like Baptiste Group, Bethany Christian (BC) is a federal contractor with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and gets paid by the federal government to provide services to arriving UACs. Unlike Baptiste which provided the housing itself, BC finds foster care parents to house children smuggled to the border until they are placed with a self-identified sponsor. 

According to Amy Scott, Nashville Branch Director at Bethany Christian, “our role is to care for children who flee to the U.S. without their families, reunite families, and restore communities.” Further down in her January 2021 Tennessean op-ed she makes it clear that she is talking about UACs and discloses that they have provided transitional (short-term) foster care to 8,000 arriving UACs since 2013. 

Scott suggests only good Christians support illegal immigration

BC is among the largest adoption and foster care providers in the country and has multiple offices in other states. In Tennessee BC operates in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Johnson City and Memphis, so it is not clear whether Scott’s reference to the 8,000 UACs served refers solely to Tennessee.

According to BC’s website Nashville is the only Tennessee location providing foster care to UACs at this time but they are actively seeking to expand “beyond [the] locations” listed.

BC is also an advocate for increasing the number of overseas refugees to be resettled in the U.S..

Without question, BC is in the same business as the Baptiste Group. The sole difference between them is that Baptiste operated a facility where the UACs were housed whereas BC farms the UACs out to paid foster care homes.

Both Baptiste and BC are responsible for releasing a UAC to self-identified sponsors who present themselves. BC is responsible for vetting the self-identified UAC sponsor. Data indicates that  approximately 78% of UAC sponsors are here illegally themselves. And some “vetted” sponsors have turned out to be labor traffickers like those in the August 2021 investigation. 

Both Baptiste and BC get paid by the federal government for these services.

Both Baptiste and BC are licensed by the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services but only Baptiste was ever discussed by the Joint Legislative Committee on Refugees. In fact, the committee legislators made a big show about going after the Baptiste Group once it became public that Baptiste was being paid to provide transitional housing and services to UAC arrivals in Chattanooga. DCS was grilled about the licensing.

Why hasn’t BC been called to account for facilitating illegal immigration with UACs by the Joint Legislative Study Committee on Refugees? Why hasn’t DCS been questioned about its licensing for BC?

The Joint Committee’s agenda for its upcoming meeting on October 12th, appears to be going after federal ORR contractors which have been identified for providing services to UACs arriving in Tennessee.

Bethany Christian Services is not included – why not? How credible is this Joint Committee or these legislators if they are willing to shield a self-identified UAC provider?

*BC insists that UACs “in the transitional foster care program are not illegal immigrants.” 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.” All UACs are illegal entrants until they receive some form of adjudicated immigration relief.

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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.

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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.

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*”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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Illegal Immigration Spread in Tennessee

It’s true that Tennessee’s illegal immigration problem is anchored in Davidson and Shelby counties. These blue urbans are run by “progressive”, ie, socialists who endorse Biden’s agenda to flood Southern states with legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens.

The most recent available numbers as of February 2020, from the data trackers show that among urban counties, Davidson was tracked to 5,355 removable illegal alien cases beating out Shelby county with 3,875 cases.

Removal proceedings happen in immigration courts and is an administrative process whereby an administrative law judge determines whether an illegal alien is deportable or for some reason, gets to stay.

It’s also true that the Tennessee General Assembly’s drift to center (the Senate may already have crossed the line to center-left), enabled by a Chamber of Commerce and refugee expansionist governor, willingly ignore the growing problem and cost of illegal immigrant numbers in the state.

costs calculated in 2017 – how much higher today?

Well surprise, surprise, or not, but illegal immigration has already spread to rural Tennessee. Bedford county was reported to have 477 individuals in removal proceedings and Sevier 951 cases.

The status of Bean Station’s (East Tennessee) illegal alien community is not entirely clear after the 2018 ICE raid at the Southeast Provision meat-packing plant. What was reported, however, was the community’s protectionist attitude to illegal immigration.

Aiding and abetting illegal immigrants to Tennessee, are well-funded groups like the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), Justice for Our Neighbors, Latino Memphis, Conexion Americas, La Paz (Chattanooga), and Centro Hispano (Knoxville) among others.

 

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TN State Funds Catholic Charities’ Infrastructure for Refugee Resettlement

In November 2020, Tennessee’s Department of Human Services used the state’s bloated TANF fund to award Catholic Charities of Tennessee (CCTN) a $7.3 million dollar grant. The money will be used to help Catholic Charities expand its operations in Middle Tennessee by establishing family resource centers in ten locations – Montgomery, Maury, Marshall, Bedford, Coffee Grundy, Warren, White, Dekalb and Putnam counties.

Family resource centers in Davidson County are staffed to assist individuals including refugees to access public benefits and services. In fact, one such center specializes in assisting refugees. Last year CCTN moved its South Nashville family resource center into the Conexion Americas Casa Asafran building. It now shares space with the Global Education Center and Metro Public Schools, the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), and Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON), an organization which advocates for illegal alien “rights” including Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC)* who are currently being transported and housed in Chattanooga.**

As part of their services, CCTN assists in connecting UACs dropped off at the border, to family members in Tennessee who may have also entered the U.S. in violation of immigration laws like the case of Edwin Mejia in Tennessee.

CCTN’s former State Refugee Coordinator Holly Johnson admitted that her agency helps link UACs to their family members in Tennessee. At the US Conference of Catholic Bishops level, taking custody of the UACs is the “doing well by doing good” business – over $23 million dollars in 2019, quite a haul considering that the UAC numbers were extremely low compared to what the Biden administration has unleashed.

Regarding the resettlement of refugees from overseas, it is no secret that Bill Lee is a passionate supporter  for spreading them throughout the state. He is joined in his support for the federal program by state Sen. Page Walley who works for an organization that makes money providing refugee resettlement services.

Over the years the refugee mileage placement rules have enabled CCTN to place refugees in many of the counties that the $7.3 million dollars in state money is now funding to help CCTN expand and set up more formal operations.

50-100 miles covers almost the whole state

CCTN’s executive director thanked Governor Lee and the DHS for their largesse in giving them the largest grant in the history of the organization assuming of course that the multi-millions received year after year from the federal government, is ignored.

CCTN wears several hats in Tennessee including operating as the State Refugee Coordinator (SRC) overseeing the federal contractors paid to bring refugees to the state. In 2008, then governor Phil Bredesen formally withdrew the state from the federal program after which the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement chose CCTN to continue the state’s refugee resettlement program.

Once Catholic Charities took over the program opening the TN Office for Refugees and employing the State Refugee Coordinator, the number of refugees being brought to the state increased by over 60% even as numbers were declining nationally.

CCTN’s state plan was to increase the number of agencies resettling refugees so they could increase the number of refugees being brought to Tennessee.This federal program has been a cash cow for CCTN and the federal contractors resettling refugees.

Government funding, in particular for work related to refugee resettlement, has dominated CCTN’s work. For example, the last available CCTN report, FY2015-16, shows just under $10 million dollars in refugee resettlement grants which come from the federal government.

The financial breakdown clearly showing the heavy dependence on refugee resettlement funds was available on CCTN’s website until 2018 – it has now been removed making the organization’s operations much less transparent.

However, according to the financials posted on the Tennessee Secretary of State website, CCTN’s budget appears to continue to be heavily dependent on government funding.

None of the resettlement contractors operating in Tennessee, including CCTN and the SRC, consult with or are accountable to the state legislature which is forced to expend state dollars to operationalize the refugee resettlement program.

For this reason alone there are reasonable and legitimate questions about why the Tennessee state government chose CCTN of all organizations, to infuse with big dollars. Asked another way, why hasn’t the state simply taken back the SRC function so the state can control the number of refugees brought to the state and the amount of state dollars used for the federal program?

On April 16th, Biden signed a memo intended to speed up the arrival of refugees but left Trump’s FY21 low cap in place – that was until the religious groups who need to fill their coffers, raised the roof. By the afternoon of the 16th, Biden caved and promised that by mid-May, the cap for the remainder of the fiscal year, would be raised to over 60,000.

Don’t be surprised if the enhanced vetting criteria put in place by Trump goes by the wayside. In 2016, after Obama announced that the U.S. would take 10,000 Syrian refugees, his administration “repeatedly shortened the timeframe” for vetting these refugees in order to get as close to that number as possible. So when refugee contractors claim that refugees are the most thoroughly vetted immigrants to the U.S…..

On thing is for certain – when the call comes that refugees are ready to come to Tennessee, CCTN will be ready!

 

*in line with the Biden administration’s unconstitutional rewrite of U.S. immigration law and erase the illegal immigration status of UACs, they are now referred to simply as “UC” – unaccompanied children.
**once UACs are released to sponsors in Tennessee, they are entitled to attend public school.

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TN House Sub-Committee Welcomes Illegal Alien Workers While TN Somalis Rip Off Kafirs

Yesterday, a group of anemic Republican General Assembly members voted down a bill that would have required all employers in Tennessee, to use the FREE federal E-verify tool to help combat employment of illegal aliens.

The obvious and logical reason for wanting employers to use E-verify, is to help disincentivize illegal aliens from migrating to Tennessee. The equation is pretty simple – no jobs, then there’s no money for food, rent, etc.

Bill sponsor Rep. Bruce Griffey explained that an employer can use the federal E-verify program for FREE or engage the services of a third party vendor at a cost of $3.00 per potential employee to have their data run through the federal database.

Republican Sub-committee members, Kevin Vaughn, Clark Boyd, Rush Bricken, and Kirk Haston all agreed that illegal immigration is a problem but that it’s a federal problem to solve, not their responsibility.

Evincing absolutely no interest in exercising their proper sphere of jurisdiction to push back on Biden’s disastrous wide open border policies which dramatically hurt legal immigrant and Tennessee citizen workers, they were, however, quick to abdicate to the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB (small business lobby).

These legislators are no better than the decepticon (ie, establishment) Republicans in D.C. with the only difference being that the Tennessee homegrown decepticons portray themselves as the protectors of small business – while turning a blind eye to the needs of legal workers. Vaughn went so far as to say that it’s his job to protect small business owners from being “deputized” to enforce federal immigration laws.

Susan Lynn, despite specifically acknowledging that illegal immigration hurts Tennessee workers who are still needing jobs and have suffered greatly from the COVID disaster, didn’t even bother to cast a vote.

Each one of these Republicans should be asked to explain why they are okay with 67,000 illegal aliens taking jobs from Tennesseans and why they continue to ignore the report from the Metro Nashville government that 31,000 illegal aliens are living and working in Davidson County.

In other Tennessee immigration related news…

The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office reported on March 10, 2021, that Mohamed Gure and Mohamed Osman, two students leaders with the MTSU Somali Students Association and the Muslim Students Association, stole over $114,000 in student activity fees.

Most Somalis have found their way to Tennessee through the federal refugee resettlement program. Between Bill Lee’s insistence that he wants more refugees, and the Biden administration’s promise to increase the flow to well over 100,000, Tennessee is likely to get more than its fair share. During the Obama administration when the refugee pipeline was running full blast, Tennessee bid for and typically received upwards of 1,200 refugees a year. The cumulative numbers, however, do not account for the other category of arrivals under the Office of Refugee Resettlement umbrella or the chain migration impact.

Gure and Osman were indicted on March 9th, by a Rutherford County grand jury. The theft was engineered by creating and forging false vouchers for reimbursement submitted to the Student Activity Fee Award Committee.

This is not the first time Somalis in Tennessee ripped off kafirs. But back then, local media like Channel 4 was willing to report it – http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm?blog_id=7455

Back in 2007, Abdirizak Hassan, executive director of what was then the Nashville Somali Community Center, was charged with and sentenced to 2 years federal probation for making false statements in connection with a federal grant for the Center. The federal charge was related to Hassan’s indictment in 2001 for felony illegal banking. Prior to leading the Somali Community Center, Hassan ran a halwa money changing business out of a convenience store. 

As reported by Channel 4 News and recorded by New English Review: – “Hassan’s Nashville bank was shut down by counter-terrorism investigators because they said the bank was linked to Al-Barakat. Al-Barakat is a bank and wiring transfer service that is linked to al-Qaida, according to investigators.  Hassan was arrested and charged with felony illegal banking.  While out on bond, Hassan and the Somali Center were awarded a grant in the amount of nearly $500,000 by the same federal government that indicted him.”

The Somali Community Center subsequently renamed itself to the Center for Refugees and Immigrants in Tennessee (CRIT). They shifted their focus to getting Tennessee employers to hire refugees. At one time, Tyson’s Human Resource Manager, Gary Denton was a member of the CRIT board. CRIT closed in 2016, but their agenda is still carried forward through groups like TIRRC.

And while Somali student leaders are stealing money from other legitimate student organizations, leftist organizations led by the Niskanen Center are calling for universities to sponsor refugee students which in their terms includes illegal aliens entering through the Southern border.

Raise in tuition or more money from the state to subsidize? Either way, its just another siphoning off of public money through the back door no different than the federal government shifting the costs of its refugee resettlement program to the states without their consent.

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Tennessee’s Worst Pro-Illegal Immigration GOP State Legislators

If you care about this issue, then this information can be used for the 2022 Tennessee state House member primaries. 

If you care about getting rid of “Tennesseeans Last” legislators, then this information is for you.

The Biden-Harris administration is working overtime to make sure that the idea of illegal immigration becomes a thing of the past.  The flurry of executive orders is a mere taste of what is to come. Consider that on his first day in office, Biden signed 6 executive orders undoing some of President Trump’s best policies to protect Americans and preserve jobs for Americans.

Tonight, Biden issued three more executive orders designed to massively expand legal and illegal immigration. His directive to the Census Bureau that the report to Congress for apportionment must include all illegal aliens is clearly intended to keep radical Democrats controlling Congress for decades to come.

Abetted by DC RINOs, don’t be surprised when the DC elite legislate a pathway to citizenship for the otherwise illegal immigrants known as DACA. Watch at how easily the parents who entered the U.S. by violating our laws and created the pool known as DACA, are granted amnesty. This is precisely the long game which groups like the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and all their affiliated groups, have been playing.

Opening the borders to anyone and everyone who is a potential Democrat cheating voter, will be welcome. But make no mistake, the establishment-elite – GOPee, wants this cheap labor as well and is willing to sell out the deplorables who supported President Trump’s immigration agenda and policies.

The Tennessee General Assembly has its own Republican illegal immigration protectionist legislators.

The two most reprehensible GOP state House members on the issue of illegal immigration are Rep. Bob Ramsey (R- Maryville) and Rep. Patsy Hazlewood (R- Signal Mountain). These two stand in a virtual tie for having the worst voting record on key legislation addressing illegal immigration.

In 2007, when Tennessee Democrats held the majority and still opposed illegal immigration, laws against illegal immigration were passed with strong bipartisan support. In fact, many of the bills were passed with unanimous votes in the House and only one or two Democrat “no” votes in the Senate.

However, when the Republicans became the majority party in both the Senate and House of the Tennessee General Assembly, all that bipartisanship opposition to illegal immigration went out the window.

No different than in DC, Tennessee Democrats have turned to fiercely protecting, rewarding and endorsing illegal immigration – and they are joined by some Tennessee “R”s.

In 2018, the General Assembly passed a strong anti-sanctuary city bill. To no great surprise, then Governor Haslam who campaigned as a hawk on illegal immigration, let it go into law without his signature.

That year, Hazlewood served on both the subcommittee and full committee of the House Finance, Ways & Means committee. She consistently sided with Democrats opposing the sanctuary city bill and actually tried to sideline the bill during the committee process.

But before the bill got to Hazlewood’s committee, it had to pass through the State Government committee chaired by Bob Ramsey where he chose to not vote for or against the bill. On the House  floor, Ramsey, who was definitely there, having voted to stop debate and got a final vote on the bill, again passed on voting to address the problem of criminal illegal aliens in Tennessee.

Biden has halted the deportation of criminal aliens, the same result of Hazlewood and Ramsey’s failure to vote in support of the anti-sanctuary city bill. 

Ramsey repeated the same pattern – voted on the motion for the previous question but failed to vote for SJR467, the joint Senate-House resolution authorizing the Tenth Amendment challenge to the federal refugee resettlement program.

The bills to award in-state college tuition to illegal immigrant students

The next two worst GOP legislators on issues related to illegal immigration, are Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) and Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R- Chattanooga). These two legislators are responsible for the multiple bills filed between 2015 and 2018, trying to award in-state college tuition to illegal immigrant students residing in Tennessee.

The first White-Gardenhire bill filed in 2015, HB675/SB612, failed to pass the House by a single vote since a 50-vote minimum is required by the state Constitution.

Hazlewood and Ramsey both voted for this bill, along with a bunch of other R’s, some of whom were re-elected this past November.

Rep. Pat Marsh (R-Shelbyville) also voted for this in-state tuition bill. In fact, he spoke passionately in support of it by openly insulting every U.S. citizen and legal immigrant student in his district. While glorifying the achievements of the students who would benefit from the White-Gardenhire bill, he conveniently ignored the fact that these students were living in Tennessee in violation of U.S. immigration law. Marsh said  – “I live in Bedford County and our schools are probably 25 percent immigrants there. We’re already paying for these students. I go into the local schools and see these immigrants in leadership roles in our schools. They’re the star athletes. They’re the star students. They deserve a chance to move forward in their lives …”

Marsh should have to answer to his county GOP for this vote and another more recent vote addressed below.

The three subsequent White-Gardenhire bills (HB660/SB635, HB863/SB104 and HB2429/SB2263), failed in their respective committees. On the last one, even with White abusing his sub-committee chairmanship, he could not strong-arm enough votes to get the bill all the way through the committee process.

In 2019, Hazlewood, Marsh and White (of the in-state tuition bills), voted with Democrats against HB1239/SB1165, a bill which modestly improved the Tennessee Lawful Employment Act (commonly referred to as “E-verify”). The Senate didn’t even bother to take up the bill in committee.

E-verify is a tool which helps stop illegal immigration by cutting off access to employment for illegal aliens. The other direct benefit of E-verify is that it “protects American workers by ensuring employers only hire individuals authorized to work in the United States.”

During the committee discussion, Rep. Mike Sparks (R- Smyrna) complained about the fines levied on employers who failed to follow the law.

There are plenty of Republicans in Congress who readily turn their backs on law-abiding Americans and all too willingly seek to cut deals that put their political interests before the interests of those they were elected to serve. Washington, DC appears to be beyond repair. The Tennessee General Assembly may still be salvaged – 2022 is not that far away.