Category: TN Politicians

Posted on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to the group Autism Tennessee:

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

States Can Combat Illegal Immigration If They Really Want To

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

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. 

Posted on

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

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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:

 

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

 

Posted on

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.