Tag: Bill Lee

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It’s Time to End the Islamization of America

Today, when law enforcement finds a “manifesto” explaining the details of why and how an act of violence has occurred or will be occurring, it becomes a valuable, integral part of an investigation. These manifestos have been treasure troves of information, perhaps giving a deep look into the why the suspect committed the act of violence. Manifestos are so valuable, they have been the center of many lawsuits to prevent their contents from becoming public.

So why has the Muslim Brotherhoods “manifesto” been ignored and put on a back burner? Is it because there are no outward statements of violence? In the case of “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America” ( the Brotherhoods manifesto, first several pages are in Arabic, English follows)) there is no violence but rather a systematic, methodical outline of organizations and groups and how they will come from within to destroy America. Why would law enforcement ignore this valuable document? It even was admitted into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation Trial held in Dallas Texas in 2008.

 Today, as we witness the outward aggressive progression of Muslims that have taken over many American cities, the question that begs to be answered is why the US Government is not doing anything about this. Except for Texas, where yesterday Gov Abbott proclaimed the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) to be terrorist organizations.  CAIR, doing what it does best immediately issued a statement followed by threats of lawsuits against the state of Texas and its Gov Greg Abbott. A proclamation signed by Abbott claims that CAIR “is an Islamist organization that, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, was founded as a ‘front group’ for ‘Hamas and its support network’ in the United States.”  It’s founder and current executive director Nihad Awad has admitted he is a supporter of Hamas.

I’m a supporter of the Hamas movement” Nihad Awad Executive Director of CAIR

Abbott has been the first Governor in the United States to take such action, but whether it has teeth or not will be seen in the future. Governors in every state should immediately follow Abbotts decision to do this, despite all the accusations of being Islamophobic. Whether or not the courts will reject this doesn’t matter… forcing CAIR to put money out to battle lawsuits would be detrimental to their finances for sure. It would also cause Muslim Brotherhood front groups to be exposed as to their intent to destroy America from within.

In order to be effective, politicians must first have a spine and not fear being called Islamophobes, bigots or haters. They must take into account the validity of their manifesto and understand the intentions of Muslims in todays America. We either will remain a democracy that embraces its Christian -Judeo principals or be turned into a land under sharia law.

I urge every American citizen that understands this legitimate threat to contact their state representatives and encourage them to take a stand against the Islamization of our cities. It no longer is something to be placed on a back burner, our country’s future is at stake.

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2 GOP State Legislator-Lawyers Want Illegal Aliens to Practice Law in TN

Last year 35 House and 15 Senate Republicans voted to help Democrats pass Republican Shane Reeves’ bill that makes illegal aliens with temporary federal (as in Biden administration) work authorization, eligible to obtain commercial and professional licenses. Helping to advance Biden’s agenda on illegal immigration, Tennessee Republicans have enabled illegal aliens to now become  licensed teachers, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, general contractors, etc.

Bill Lee of course, rushed to sign it into law.

Sen. John Stevens and Rep. Andrew Farmer, both of whom are lawyers, both voted for the Shane Reeves bill to reward illegal aliens with this state public benefit. It apparently didn’t matter to these two Republican lawyers that the illegal aliens they have rewarded, do not have lawful presence for purposes of getting state public benefits.

Surely they knew, being lawyers and all, that being granted work authorization by the federal government doesn’t change an illegal alien’s immigration status or make them somehow lawfully present in the U.S. for purposes of getting state public benefits.

While Sen. Reeves may not have understood that his target group of Obama’s DACA recipients are not lawfully present for purposes of getting state public benefits, how is it that two lawyer-legislators didn’t know this? Or did they know and chose anyway to vote in favor of rewarding DACA illegal aliens with a public benefit?

Regardless, the bill that Bill Lee signed into law applies to other illegal aliens with work authorization beyond DACA recipients.

Rep. Farmer is pretty soft when it comes to bills dealing with illegal immigration. Hypocritically, when one of the bills sponsored by Rep. Dan Howell dealing with the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being smuggled into Tennessee was in the committee Farmer was chairing, and after Howell admitted that UACs have no lawful immigration status but lamented that his new child care license is “all that we can do” in the face of federal jurisdiction over immigration, Farmer reminded everyone that the federal government has “exclusive jurisdiction even though we are a sovereign state”.

But there is no federal mandate to give illegal aliens state public benefits like professional licenses. Farmer also voted YES in 2015, to give illegal aliens the state public benefit of in-state tuition; the bill failed by a single vote in the House.

While Stevens voted NO on the 2015 in-state tuition bill, he did vote YES on the UAC bill last year.

Word has it that a bill giving the public benefit of in-state tuition to illegal aliens may have enough support this year to finally pass. Reporting as of 2018, noted that at least five states that give illegal aliens in-state tuition also allow them to get a license to practice law.

Will Tennessee become state #6?

Regardless, Stevens and Farmer deserve to be asked why they want to help illegal aliens become licensed to practice law in Tennessee.

sen.john.stevens@capitol.tn.gov
rep.andrew.farmer@capitol.tn.gov

 

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TN AG Makes Weak Showing in Multi-State Lawsuit Challenging Biden New Parole Program

The real question is when will Tennessee’s new Attorney General turn his attention to how the legislature and governor are helping Biden violate U.S. immigration law?

On January 24, 2023, twenty states led by Texas, filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s new program to bring hundreds of thousands more illegal aliens into the U.S..

Tennessee is one of the states suing. The other nineteen states are Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Tennessee is represented in this lawsuit by the new Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.

These states are asking a federal court in Texas to “enjoin, declare unlawful and set aside the Department [of Homeland Security]’s lawless parole program.”

The parole program addressed by this lawsuit will allow up to an additional 30,000 aliens per month (or 360,000 per year) from Venezuela, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, into the United States without explicit authorization from Congress.

Critically as it relates to Tennessee, migrants admitted under this this new illegal Biden program, will be automatically eligible to apply for work authorization and can stay in the United States for up to two years.”

The Shane Reeves “Workforce Expansion Act” passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed into law by Bill Lee, says that if you have work authorization, you are now eligible for commercial and professional licenses in Tennessee.

Tennessee Republicans have made work authorization the golden ticket for illegal aliens.

The lawsuit

The lawsuit document is structured with each state stating how the new program causes “substantial harm” to their state.  Tennessee’s portion begins on p.27 of the lawsuit in paragraph 124.

Eight of the supposedly “red” states, Tennessee included, use illegal alien population data from the Migration Policy Institute, a self-described non-partisan think tank whose funders include, the George Soros Open Society Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration & Refugee Services, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. State Department, the Catholic League Immigration Network, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the JM Kaplan Fund, just to name a few.

Back in 2015, the JM Kaplan Fund paid $50,00 to help the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), produce a report titled Countering the Backlash, Strategies for Responding to Anti-Refugee and Xenophobic Activity from the New South. The $50,000 was funneled through the Migration Policy Institute.

Influence Watch describes the Migration Policy Institute as “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.”

MPI has also advocated that state and local governments need to provide better services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), with an emphasis on legal representation to help ensure that illegal alien minors can stay in the U.S..

None of the twenty states that are suing use the relevant data from conservative immigration sources like FAIR or the Center for Immigration Studies.

Census-based estimates of illegal aliens living in Tennessee range from FAIR’s 162,000 (218,000 with their U.S. born children), as compared to MPI’s outdated 128,000.

In citing cost of public school education in Tennessee no mention is made directly about the annually escalating cost in the millions to teach English to non-English speaking students who may also be illiterate in their native language but the lawsuit does refer to the “approximately $46.7 million [expenditure] on healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants in its CoverKids (CHIP) program”.

Bad proofreading? “Undocumented immigrants” is the left’s language.

As the lawsuit explains, Biden’s new parole program requires new illegal aliens to have a U.S.  “supporter” act as a sponsor. The lawsuit explains that “supporters” can include “individuals with Temporary Protected Status [TPS] and beneficiaries of deferred action (including DACA)”.

FAIR makes clear, that both TPS and DACA recipients “have not been granted ‘lawful status’. Rather, federal immigration authorities have acknowledged their unlawful presence and are opting to temporarily defer their removal from the country.”

This means that Biden’s new program would enable illegal aliens in Tennessee to sponsor bringing new illegal aliens to Tennessee.

Texas governor Abbott puts it simply – Biden’s new program is “flat-out contrary to federal law”. Tennessee’s “Workforce Expansion Act” is also contrary to federal law, and worse yet, abets Biden’s destructive immigration programs and policies.

Attorney General Skrmetti is taking on the new Biden program – any chance he’ll address what Tennessee lawmakers have done to his own state?

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TN GOP Lawmakers Help Biden Violate US immigration law

Republican state lawmakers like Rep. Mark White, Sen. Todd Gardenhire, Rep. Patsy Hazelwood, and others, have long been advocating for the interests of illegal aliens.

Not to be outdone, last year Tennessee’s pro-illegal-immigration lawmakers and enough Republicans including House caucus chairman Jeremy Faison, joined Democrats in advancing Biden’s agenda on illegal immigration by officially making federal work authorization the golden ticket for illegal aliens to settle in Tennessee.

GOP Sen. Shane Reeves and Democrat House member Bob Freeman convinced enough Republicans to help Democrats pass “The Workforce Expansion Act”. And of course, Bill Lee rushed to sign it into law. (consider that former Nebraska Republican governor Pete Ricketts recently appointed to take Ben Sasse’s seat in the U.S. Senate, vetoed a similar bill passed by his state legislature. Ricketts said it wasn’t fair to immigrants who followed the law to come to the U.S. Unfortunately, the foolish legislators overrode his veto).

The new law gives illegal aliens with federal work permits the public benefit of getting commercial and professional licenses.

In typical fashion, Tennessee’s lawmakers didn’t bother to consider the far-reaching implications of this new law or consider how it advances the left’s agenda on illegal immigration.

In fact, “The Workforce Expansion Act” rewards federal work permits being issued under a Biden immigration program that isn’t legal.

So using federal work authorization as “cover” to justify appeasing NFIB and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce no longer passes the smell test.

Tennessee’s new law directly abets Biden’s border program granting parole to Venezuelan, Ukranian, Cuban, Haitian, and Nicaraguan migrants – a program which immigration experts note will continue to flood the country with “‘up to’” an additional 30,000 aliens per month (or 360,000 per year) into the United States without explicit authorization from Congress. Aliens paroled into the United States under these programs will be automatically eligible to apply for work authorization and can stay in the United States for up to two years.”

This program among others like Obama’s DACA program, violate U.S. immigration law meaning that illegal aliens are granted immigration benefits that Congress never authorized them to receive. Simply put, these groups of illegal aliens have no legal or lawful access to these benefits.

At the same time, GOP lawmakers focused on advancing the interests of Obama’s DACA grantees, have chosen to deliberately ignore the fact that these individuals also have no legal, Congressionally authorized immigration status. They are also ignoring the fact that in July 2021,  a Texas U.S. District Court ruled that the DACA program was procedurally and substantively invalid and in violation of U.S. immigration law. This ruling was affirmed by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

And yet, Tennessee’s state government voted to give the DACA illegal aliens a state public benefit.

It’s difficult to understand why Tennessee legislators support facilitating illegal immigration. In 2018, GOP Rep. Patsy Hazelwood tried to kill the anti-sanctuary city bill to protect crime committing illegal aliens from deportation and in 2015, Rep. Pat Marsh was glorifying illegal aliens as the “star athletes” and “star students” while he was voting to give them the public benefit of in-state tuition.

It remains to be seen when Rep. Mark White and Sen. Todd Gardenhire once again try to secure in-state tuition for illegal aliens. The big question on this issue is whether they will ignore another federal law that would require Tennessee to give in-state tuition to any U.S. citizen from any state if they give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. How would in-state tuition advocate former gubernatorial candidate now UT President Randy Boyd feel about the lost dollars?

When it serves their purposes Tennessee lawmakers defer to federal jurisdiction over immigration. But when they pass laws which gratuitously advance the interests of illegal aliens, they are effectively nullifying U.S. immigration laws. It’s bad enough that the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to side-step, over-ride and openly violate the immigration laws that are supposed to protect U.S. citizens, but why are Tennessee lawmakers helping Biden with that agenda?

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally who supports giving in-state tuition to illegal alien students is concerned that  “we’re headed for a downturn in the economy”. And yet, he voted to make Tennessee more attractive to the cheap foreign labor awarded with Biden’s work authorization instead of protecting jobs for Americans and legal immigrants.

Former Chairman of The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, U.S. Congressman Barbara Jordan, a black Democrat from Texas, better represents Tennessee voters concerned about the impact of illegal immigration, than the current Republican super-majority Tennessee General Assembly.

Jordan was known for looking at illegal immigration through the lens of the “national interest”. As Chairman Jordan told a House committee in 1994, “for immigration to continue to serve our national interest, it must be lawful. There are people who argue that some illegal aliens contribute to our community because they may work, pay taxes, send their children to our schools, and in all respects except one, obey the law. Let me be clear: that is not enough.”

When will GOP lawmakers step up and follow Barbara Jordan’s lead?

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

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

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

The Tennessee House vote for and against Israel

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tennessee legislative subcommittee joins Democrats and refuses to recognize parental rights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That bill became law without his signature anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you have any doubt, read this April story: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.