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.
And in the process, enable local governments to be run by Marxists, diminish the opportunities for lesser-skilled workers, and generally degrade the quality of life for freedom-loving Tennesseans.
Every time the governor or a member of the Tennessee General Assembly rolls out the “we’re a business friendly state” excuse for why they won’t vote to do X or Y, they should be reminded of four things:
1.abetting the emerging business-driven “soft” vaccine mandates in Tennessee will not end well for incumbents
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s December 2020 guidance on vaccinations does not prohibit employers from requiring COVID vaccination as a condition of employment, but does recognize that there are exemptions for certain disabilities and those with a sincerely held religious belief.
Any number of bills related to COVID – SB7/HB10, SB320/HB794, SB564/HB1269, have fallen by the wayside this session. One bill still standing and which may provide some degree of protection is SB187/HB13 which preserves the religious exemption for COVID and its variant vaccines.
However, it does not apply to private businesses so individuals may have to avail themselves of the EEOC process. An amendment was filed by Sen. Haile that also exempted government-run hospitals, nursing homes and public universities so employees and perhaps even university attendees and nursing home residents may still be subject to an institution mandated vaccine program.
Sen. Ferrell Haile
Republicans legislators tend to send a message of semi-appeasement, indecisiveness and lack of backbone on very controversial issues. Democrats, however, have no problem sticking together and casting morally reprehensible votes against bills like Rep. Tim Rudd’s “Unborn Child Dignity Act” which requires burial or cremation for aborted babies.
Rudd described his bill as seeking to “extend the protections, dignity and respect of a deceased surgically aborted child as granted to any other deceased human being…the bill would make the same level of respect applicable as currently available to pets.”
Democrats on the House Health Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee voted against the bill
2. illegal aliens depress the wages of the least skilled Tennessee workers
Despite recognizing the connection between job development, employment of Tennesseans and illegal immigration, Haslam reneged on his campaign promise to “do everything within my authority to be sure that Tennessee does not attract illegal activity.” He refused to sign the sanctuary city bill in 2108, so it went into law without his signature.
As to the employment of illegal aliens in Tennessee, 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.”
3. spending state taxpayer dollars to relocate woke corporations which then work against Constitutionally-based public policy, ultimately backfires
In 2018, for example, former governor and never-Trumper Bill Haslam handed over $20+ million of Tennessee taxpayer dollars to get Alliance Bernstein (AB), a NYC investment management and research firm, to move its new corporate headquarters and its leftist wokeness to Nashville.
At the time, Lamar and Corker couldn’t heap enough praise on Haslam for bringing in more New Yorkers to benefit from living in a no-state-income-tax state – a product of a more conservative leaning legislature buttressed by hefty and sustained support from voters.
Part of AB’s “Social Responsibility” platform is “promoting gender and racial equity.”
Upon arrival, AB didn’t hesitate to try and use its economic weight to influence the Tennessee General Assembly’s work. In 2019, AB joined with the likes of Taylor Swift, Amazon, the Equality Project and the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce to oppose bills which they claimed discriminated against the LGBT community.
Included in the bills to which AB and its allies objected, was the “Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act,” (SB1282/HB1369), intended as a response to the Obergefell decision and to uphold the Tennessee Constitution’s “defense of marriage” provision (one man and one woman being the only legally recognized marital contract in Tennessee).
It’s a telling and troubling sign that this bill was never heard in any committee and that a Republican supermajority legislature couldn’t find its way to support the state’s Constitutional amendment which was approved by 81.3% (close to 1.5 million votes) on the November 2006 ballot, and approved overwhelmingly by all four of Tennessee’s socialist counties.
Cementing its woke status, AB’s (white) vice-president Daniel Weisman joined the Nashville-based Equity Alliance’s board.
Founded in 2016, The Equity Alliance mission is to build black and people of color power. The campaigns to “build power” include corrupting Tennessee’s voter integrity laws by pushing to expand absentee voting and vote by mail. Their 501(c)(4) Equity Alliance Action Fund (the Fund) is a member of the Nashville Justice League (NCL) which has successfully helped socialist candidates get elected to the Metro Nashville City Council; their success has been championed by the Marxist group Liberation Road.
The Fund endorsed Marxist candidate Marquita Bradshaw in the 2020 Senate primary. She lost but another of their chosen “progressive” candidates Torey Harris won a seat in the state legislature to become the youngest state legislator who describes himself as bi-sexual. Now they are taking on the Chattanooga City Council.
Given the Fund’s track record, it’s perfectly predictable that they will endorse Odessa Kelly who has announced running for Congress against Rep. Jim Cooper. Kelly was recruited and is being supported by the Justice Democrats which operates out of an address in Knoxville. They are the group which successfully installed the anti-Semitic squad in Congress and is using its power to change Congress and assault the South.
Response from our Republican legislators? We’re a “business friendly state.”
4. the good-will of freedom-loving voters is running out
The extreme failure and dysfunction of the legislature to proactively address the assault on Tennessee from Biden’s insane actions on illegal immigration, taking a “mum’s the word” approach to possible business-driven vaccine mandates and generally demonstrating that they are unprepared and unwilling to unqualifiedly uphold Constitutional principles and God-given rights and freedoms, without which, we are finished.
March is the month that Tennessee House members shifted remaking the state into high gear – illegal alien workers are welcome, racism is a public health threat and made the case for more RINOs to be elected!
Cameron Sexton and RINO Central
House members have twice elected Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) to lead as Speaker knowing that he is a card carrying member of RINO Central, aka, the Southland Advantage fundraising firm whose stable of clients include super-RINO Steve Dickerson (voted to support ballot harvesting), Eddie Mannis and La Raza Randy Boyd.
Even if the company Sexton keeps doesn’t concern Conservative voters, his choice of Southland given its traitorous, scandalous and unethical conflict-of-interest ridden history, should.
When Taylor and Walker Ferrell, Southland’s husband and wife team, launched their political shop in 2015, both were employed by and embedded in the Tennessee Republican Party – Walker was the Political Director of the state party, and Taylor was employed as the Interim Finance Director.
All three of Southland’s first stable of Republican clients were recruited to oust proven incumbent conservatives.
Flash in the pan Grant Starrett ran against Rep. Scott DeJarlais, Beth Cox ran against then state Rep. Courtney Rogers, and Will Lockhart ran against then state Rep. Judd Matheny.
All three of Southland’s candidates lost their primary races.
2016 was a busy year for Sexton – he sponsored the National Popular Vote bill and was rumored to have been testing the caucus waters for a bid for Speaker. While it took him four more years to ascend to Speaker, he did so bringing along his tainted perspective of how representative government is supposed to work.
Given his history and affiliations, it’s no doubt that the cowardly Republican caucus suspected that a good RINO like Sexton would be willing to abuse his authority and shield them from inviting illegal aliens to work in Tennessee. Dropping the gavel before any member could even turn on their microphone to offer a second to Griffey’s Rule 53 Motion followed by stripping Griffey of his committee assignments, is a too obvious move to protect caucus RINOs from Chamber and NFIB wrath.
It wasn’t that long ago that Speaker Pro Tem Pat Marsh, an illegal alien protectionist, supported awarding in-state college tuition to illegal aliens because, “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 …”
Tennessee’s doctors are racist
Earlier this month, in true BLM-style, the House Health Subcommittee passed a joint resolution affirming that all Tennessee doctors are racists. Only two Republicans voted against it in the full House committee and even though it’s going back for another round in the full committee, it’s a safe bet that whatever gets passed there again, will be passed by the cowering Republican caucus.
No doubt the even more liberal Senate Republicans will agree and “recognize racism as a public health threat.”
The resolution in question is centered around the pro-abortion American Medical Association’s (AMA) declarations regarding an alleged connection between structural racism and public health.
Like other medical venues which are “laundering their progressivism” under the guise of public health, the AMA is also pushing the climate change. During the Trump administration, the AMA issued a statement criticizing the protective separation of children and adults after crossing the border illegally. There’s no record of the AMA speaking against the same policy practiced during the Obama administration.
House Caucus – we need more fake conservatives
The same divide between Conservative and Establishment Republicans in D.C. is also happening in our state legislature. How did we end up with a governor who campaigned as a “conservative outsider” but whose policies and agenda for Tennessee ignore critical issues like real Constitutional carry and the impact of illegal immigration on Tennessee’s legal workers?
Was anyone else laughing out loud when the American Conservative Union (ACU) ranked the Tennessee General Assembly as the most conservative legislature in the country for a consecutive second year?
But that was in 2017, and A LOT has happened since then including a continued decline in the conservative profile and ACU ranking of Tennessee’s House and Senate.
In 2020, the Senate’s average conservative ranking fell by a full 10 points from the prior year, to 75% while the House fell by 11 points to 78%. The slide of phony conservative legislators into RINO-ism is often subtle and difficult to nail down explicitly; it is best looked at as a downward trend taken in a series of mostly small steps.
For example, when Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) ran for the first time in his rural east Tennessee mountain district that includes Cocke, Jefferson, and Greene counties, he labeled himself “the conservative”.
A few terms down the road and “the conservative” Faison pushed for legalizing marijuana medical treatments whichhe said, “has no side effects” as compared to alcohol, relying on the standard canard the left and old burned out hippies have been pushing for decades that marijuana can provide medical benefits.
Was Faison’s idea that marijuana would be Cocke County’s biggest cash crop and the pot growers could just start bottling the oil in the field; “farm to table” would, after all, be in keeping with current trends. It will also legalize the weed industry already in place.
Faison also appears to have taken the RINO road on illegal immigration. In Faison’s now deleted 2016 op-ed he wrote that: “Two of the three top Republican presidential candidates want 30 million illegal immigrants deported. Many of these illegal immigrants have family members that are citizens. No president will ever deport. Republicans should build a bridge to their community with concrete, achievable solutions.” This is probably why he filed to be a Marco Rubio delegate in 2016 due to Rubio’s position to amnesty illegal aliens.
And now for a flashback laugh of the day that no one could seriously fabricate – Faison’s bill making it legal for Tennesseans to raise and sell skunks Creating a ready-made market for pot pet specific products like those being sold in California?
If you’re thinking House member conservative sell-out, know that Faison is not alone.
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.
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.
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.
The TN Council on Children and Youth (TCCY), its nine regional council members and anyone else that wants to participate, will access a free webinar on checking their white privilege.
The “free” webinar “Cultural Collisions” addressing “cultural competency” is being paid for by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (TDMHSAS). This is the second webinar in a series on implicit bias and racial equity.
The third and final webinar is titled “Lets Talk Race.” The training objectives include “a safe and carefully led conversation about the history of slavery in the United States and its inevitable impact in present day”…and “the impact of racial constructs in legislation, policies, practices, and cultural identity.”
TDMHSAS Commissioner Marie Williams was originally appointed by Haslam and was reappointed by Bill Lee in January 2019.
The goal of “cultural competency” is to help white people understand and acknowledge their implicit biases across a wide range of issues which can include race, class, gender sexual orientation, sexual identity, religion, weight, discrimination and the mother of them all according to BLM, white privilege.
Last year, Williamson County teachers were shown a “Cultural Competency” video series as part of professional development, one of which addressed white privilege and how it causes “unintentional bias.”
The free webinar for Tennessee employees and TCCY council members addressing “cultural competency” includes free “CEUs” (continuing education units required to retain certain practice licenses), a sure draw for anyone needing the credits. Guest speaker Pastor Edward Palmer is a certified diversity trainer who has previously provided his course to Tennessee departments. He’s back for a repeat visit. Palmer’s focus area is juvenile justice systems.
Palmer and his wife co-pastor at The Sign of the Dove Church International located in Radcliff, Kentucky. From his bio:
“He is a Certified Diversity Trainer and works to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities within the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. He most recently became a certified Racial and Ethnic Disparities Capstone Project Fellow through the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University.”
Palmer has a single entry on his blog, entitled, What is Race?
Race is a social construct used by some as an indicator of inferiority or superiority. Race as a social construct influences how individuals are perceived and treated by others and systems within society. Since as early as and even before the 1500s, the pseudoscientific idea that race defines who is less intelligent, less capable and of less value to humanity has been used to justify the violent, demeaning and harsh treatment of people on the bases of skin color….
Because the consequences are real, race will continue to matter until we debunk and deconstruct the idea of race and the systems that have used this ideology to discriminate and depress people of the perceived minority group.
It is a laudable mission for resources to be directed to struggling and vulnerable children, young adults and their families. Successful interventions serve the larger community but the timing of this diversity training is highly suspect and too many actions are being justified under the COVID intervention umbrella.
The August TN Commission on Children and Youth (TCCY) newsletter includes the Commission’s statement on racial justice with the view that Tennessee is a racist state:
Another TCCY August newsletter focused on federal updates includes links to ultra-left Center for American Progress COVID information, the left-leaning Urban Institute which more often than not, pushes a progressive policy agenda, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which was a key funder of groups pushing Obamacare and has made grants to the Clinton Foundation.
To round it out, the TCCY federal update newsletter included a link to this anti-Trump piece put out by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, another group “widely regarded as being aligned with progressive and liberal positions.”
The TCCY is a state agency funded with public money and should not be using its access to state-wide employees to share its own overt political bias.
Richard Kennedy is the TCCY Executive Director and can be reached at (615) 741-2633 or tccy.info@tn.gov
Commissioner Marie Williams whose agency is paying for the cultural competency webinar series can be reached at 615) 532-6500, Marie.Williams@tn.gov
It’s no surprise that Tennessee’s elected elitists sold out Tennessee conservatives to New York lefties.
Former governor and never-Trumper Bill Haslam handed over $20+ million of Tennessee taxpayer dollars to get Alliance Bernstein (AB), a NYC investment management and research firm, to move its new corporate headquarters to Tennessee.
The move of course was to Mayor David Briley’s leftist Nashville since no self-respecting NYC transplant could possibly live someplace that didn’t have a Starbucks on every corner, organic food markets, or the trendiest restaurants.
While Haslam couldn’t conceal the $20 million fast track grant, the actual total of tax incentives for the AB deal were not disclosed, but months later, the Nashville Metro Council added their own $3.68 million dollar incentive package to lock in the AB deal. Regardless of the dollar and social cost (to be discussed below), both Lamar and Corker couldn’t heap enough praise on Haslam for bringing in more Yankees who want the benefits of living in a no-state income tax state.
“”Moving our corporate headquarters here allows us to offer advantages to our employees that we simply couldn’t in the New York metro area,’” president and CEO Seth Bernstein, said during a press conference. He noted lower living expenses, taxes and housing costs, shorter commute times and a more modern work facility.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/02/alliancebernstein-is-moving-to-nashville-from-manhattan-to-save-money.html
How AB’s philanthropy is being spread around Nashville is hard to document. But what is known, is that AB Vice-President, Daniel Weisman is serving as a board member of the Nashville-based Equity Alliance.
Founded in 2016, The Equity Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, employs state-wide and community organizers, communications and operational managers along with two co-executive directors. This group organizes around issues of alleged police brutality, equity for people of color, and like every other far left group, maintains a 501(c)(4) arm which is working to vote Trump out of office and elect progressive socialists.
The Equity Alliance’s 501(c)(4), Equity Alliance Action Fund, is a member of the Nashville Justice League coalition (NJL) along with TIRRC Votes, the affiliate of (the Soros-funneled money) TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition which advocates for illegal aliens and legal immigrants like refugees, and the Central Labor Council of Nashville & Middle TN (AFL-CIO).
The NJL formed a PAC shortly before the August 2019 election for the Nashville Metro Council with the goal of moving the city council further left. The NJL’s true intentions were exposed in the July 2019 Liberation Road Newsletter. Liberation Road is the continuation of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The name was changed to Liberation Road at the group’s national congress in April 2019. FRSO is well-seated in Tennessee; the co-director of the Highlander Research & Education Center, the socialist training school just outside of Knoxville, is a longstanding participant with the FRSO.
Given the NJL’s core mission there is no surprise about the candidates they endorsed.
For example, Bob Mendes and Colby Sledge were the council members who in 2017, introduced two bills that if passed, would have made Nashville the most liberal sanctuary city in the country. Sledge is married to Lindsey Harris who until very recently, was a co-director of TIRRC.
Kyontze Toombs, who serves as Secretary and General Counsel for the Equity Alliance was endorsed and won her Metro Council race so they now have a front row seat at the table.
Gicola Lane, another NJL endorsed, but losing candidate, was paid by Black Voters Matter as a campaign coordinator in getting the anti-police Community Oversight Board on the ballot and passed. This year she is an electoral justice fellow with the Movement for Black Lives, the policy setting umbrella organization.
The same co-director of the Highlander Education Center who is a long-standing participant with FRSO, is also a member of the policy table leadership team of the Movement for Black Lives.
As to Alliance Bernstein, it didn’t take long for the company which is ranked fifth among Nashville’s largest private employers, to try and use its economic weight to influence the Tennessee General Assembly’s work. In 2019, AB joined a chorus opposing several bills which they, Taylor Swift, Amazon, the Equality Project and the Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce claimed discriminated against the LGBT community. Guess they don’t care about “Q.”
Tennessee politicians and their appointees continue to pour state taxpayer funds into Nashville. Between 2015 and 2020, the state has given Metro Nashville $99,581,919 in fast track economic development grants supporting more than 70 projects. Rewarding the out-of-control and irresponsible spending of the Nashville city government didn’t stop with the state’s FY2021 supposed COVID-driven austerity budget which directed $5 million to the San Fran on the Cumberland.
As to the can’t-figure-out-how-to-do-the-governor-job Bill Lee, he is blindly following along, thanking AB for its “ongoing commitment to Nashville and to our state.”
According to multiple reports, the very-much-on-the-defense Governor Lee claimed at First Tuesday that counties defer to the state’s consent for refugee resettlement. One attendee described Lee’s version as “the counties are at the mercy of the state.”
This is so NOT what the President’s Executive Order says and NOT what the State Department guidance says.
The EO and the Funding Notice which ORR says “operationalizes” the EO, say over and over and over and over again, that local governments have a role and a stake in deciding whether to have refugees imported into their counties.
The written guidance issued by the State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees & Migration says specifically that the State Consent Letter could “consent to initial resettlement for refugees only in certain counties” which Arkansas’ governor did. This strongly suggests that there would have been communication and consideration for concerns which counties might have.
Remember, Bill Lee rode his tractor in all those rural counties which he says he cares the most about, so he should know who to talk to about refugee resettlement there. He certainly knew who to pander to for votes.
Governor to county consultation could have happened if the Governor hadn’t been so insistent about imposing his personal agenda on the entire state.But he never bothered to ask the state legislature or county officials who have to open up the purse to pay for the Governor’s personal agenda.
Every public system and every state taxpayer in Tennessee is impacted by refugee resettlement. For example, take required language services. The Tennessee Department of Human Services must offer applications for food stamps and cash welfare (TANF) in Somali, Arabic and Spanish. They used to (and probably still do upon request), offer help in two Kurdish dialects, Bosnian and Vietnamese.
For example, since 2016, Tennessee has received 4,113 refugees which included 279 Bhutanese, 405 Burmese and 366 Somali refugees.
Demographic data from the State Department’s website shows that of the 11,627 Bhutanese brought to the U.S., 27% were under 14 years old and only 15% of the adult population attained a secondary school education level.
Of the 26,500 Burmese who were brought to the U.S. over 9,500 were under 14 years old, 426 were over 65 and only 20% of the adult population attained a secondary school education.
Of the 15,689 Somali arrivals, over 6,000 were under 14 years old and only 8% of the adult population attained a secondary school education.
Refugee students who enter public school systems and who don’t speak English require specialized English Language Learner (ELL) services. School systems must also hire translators to assist the parents. Many students lack regular formal education in their native language.
Even though the federal government mandates teaching English to students so they can access the education being provided, very little of the cost is funded by the federal government; the majority of the cost is funded by the state with a required local share.
And even though refugee students are the smaller part of the ELL population (wanna guess who the majority might be?), it’s the refugee students who bring the much larger number of different languages to serve. Not saying these students shouldn’t be taught, but the Governor has no business blindly imposing costs (which he isn’t even allowed to do under the state Constitution) so he can fulfill his Biblical and personal mandate.
Bill Lee believes he can force feed refugees into any county in the state he chooses, so counties would be wise to formally object if they disagree with the Governor. In the end silence may equate to acceptance. The EO, the Funding Notice, the State Department Report to Congress and even the Department of Justice response to the VOLAG lawsuit trying to enjoin the EO, repeatedly say that they really want to just try and put refugees in communities that want to support them.
Why would a Commissioner of Education in Tennessee send a letter to all schools to encourage their students to participate in upcoming student walkouts? That’s what Candace McQueen has done, all under the guise of student safety, and the right for children’s free speech. Really?
What Candace McQueen isn’t telling parents is who organized these national events, and what they really are about..it isn’t about safety..it’s all about resist, and selective activism. In the five page “Guidance on Student Walkouts” (*read entire document below), it urges students, teachers and administrators to participate in three planned, “student led” protests, even providing sample notes to be sent to parents.
These aren’t student led events, these are protests organized by radical, leftist leaders of groups that are also active in dismantling and destroying America. The first event is scheduled for March 14, led by none other than Linda Sarsour,of the Womens March. Sarour is a Muslim activist who hates America, and promotes Sharia Law, which oppresses women. Sarsour has called for jihad against the President of the United States, supports Muslim Brotherhood front groups with known ties to Hamas, and is active with promoting the Black Lives Matter movement. Below Sarsour still uses the false narrative of hands up don’t shoot as equating her concern for all children’s safety.
If you are a leftie, and believe in the resistance movement then March 24th is the protest for you. March For Our Lives continues to state it’s a “student led” walkout, except it’s occurring in Washington DC! Can masses of children in high schools afford the transportation, lodging, meals and any other expenses on their own, probably not. So left leaning, socialist loving actors like George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Kate Capshaw, and Steven Spielberg have donated thousands, ($500,000 to be exact) on their behalf.
Finally, the April 20th “schoolwalkoutUS” is set on that date to remember the victims of the first school shooting 19 years ago in Columbine High School, although kids in high school today weren’t even born then. Despite calls to set another date out of respect for those who died that day, organizers feel its appropriate. Again, it is who is leading the charge for this march, which is the “indivisible” crowd. The same “indivisible” that has waged war against President Trump.
Indivisible was formed at the same time Obama’s resist movement “Organizing for Action” was formed, and their mission statement reads in part “a grassroots movement of local groups to defeat the Trump agenda, elect progressive leaders, and realize bold progressive policies”.
Candace MCQueen, the Commissioner of Education for TN Schools, seems to think promoting these events is a good idea, and it may be if you yourself are liberal and looking to create mini activists. Taxpayers in TN pay for children to learn, not to walk out of class. They also most likely don’t approve of re-scheduling tests that are to be given on April 20th. How is this fair to students who dont’ participate in these protests? Oh but it isn’t about being fair, it’s all about resisting.
