Tag: E-verify

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TN GOP State Legislators Do Most of Left’s Work on Illegal Immigration… 

With the exception of SB2245/HB2128, this year’s crop of GOP sponsored immigration bills show Republican legislators caving to the left’s agenda on illegal immigration.

SB2245/HB2128, sponsored by long-proven conservative Sen. Joey Hensley and Rep. John Crawford, in a nutshell, bars non-U.S. citizens including illegal aliens and lawful permanent residents (LPR, aka, green card holders), from voting in a federal, state or local election. Different categories of LPRs are eligible to adjust their immigration status to citizen. For example, refugees who are legally admitted to the U.S, through the overseas refugee program, are required to adjust their immigration status to LPR after one year and are then eligible four years later, to try and pass the citizenship test.

The bill also prohibits a local jurisdiction from granting a non-U.S. citizen the right to vote. All House Democrats voted in favor of the bill while all Senate Democrats voted against it.

Beyond this one bill, thanks to the GOP, the left is high-fiving itself all the way to the border.

SB2783/HB2868 sponsored by Republicans Sen. Bo Watson and Rep. Ryan Williams. Both legislators served on the summer’s misnamed Joint Study Committee on Refugees which was convened in response to the discovery of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) arrivals to Tennessee. 

When it became public that the UAC arrivals, who enter the country illegally, were being housed in a federally-contracted facility in Chattanooga, legislative leadership felt compelled to spring into action! Adopting the love language of the left which refers to UACs as “refugees”, Tennessee’s leadership convened the Joint Study Committee on Refugees. 

As defined in federal law, UACs have “no lawful immigration status in the United States”. 

Were they confused by Congressman Mark Green’s bill which treated UACs as refugees? This was one of the very few times they should have listened to pro-refugee Bill Lee who, believe it or not, understands that UACs are not refugees – “[when] the Times Free Press asked specifically about the migrant children, the governor said the Times Free Press was conflating unaccompanied minors with refugees. “‘These are unaccompanied, illegal immigrant children,” Lee responded during the Monday news conference. “Those are two entirely separate issues.’”

Nevertheless, both Watson (who cheered on Green’s bill) and Williams, sponsored SB2783/HB2868, a bill initially intended to reopen a state office on refugee resettlement to track UAC arrivals. The bill was subsequently amended to remove the reopening of a state office and instead, to simply have after-the-fact arrival information sent to different legislative committees.

While presenting his bill, Rep. Williams repeatedly told his colleagues what a great job Catholic Charities is doing with the state’s refugee resettlement program and that the NGO is a “great partner to the state”.

After the GOP fortified Catholic Charities of Tennessee with the largest dump of money the non-profit has ever received, the rave reviews sound more like a justification for a questionable decision.

In November 2020, the state handed over $7.3 million dollars of taxpayer money to Catholic Charities to spread their infrastructure into ten new counties without any restrictions on also spreading their refugee resettlement activities.

 

Bottom line of the Watson-Williams bill is the knowing when illegal aliens arrive – that’s it.

SB2729/HB2711 sponsored by Republicans Sen. Dawn White and Rep. Dan Howell, the co-chairs of the misnamed Joint Study Committee on Refugees.

In direct contradistinction of quick steps taken in Florida with DeSantis’ emergency order to “ban the issuance or renewal of all state licenses to companies or NGOs that provide services to UACs” in his state, Tennessee legislators are actively creating a new category of state agency for UACs called the non-traditional child care agency (NCCA). As described by Rep. Howell, this initiative is intended to enable the state to better provide for the “safety and welfare” of the UACs because according to Howell, the “federal government says states have to”.

Howell was honest about the fact 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. Trying to soften the blow, committee chairman Andrew Farmer reminded everyone that the federal government has “exclusive jurisdiction even though we are a sovereign state”. 

DeSantis clearly disagrees, because his administration followed up his emergency order with new rules that retains the bar on licenses for facilities housing UACs sent to Florida in the absence of a cooperative agreement between the state and the federal government.

Howell’s bill would limit the number of UACs housed in a dormitory style facility like the one in Chattanooga, limit the number of facilities across Tennessee and the facility owner would have to pay the state for each child. Importantly, Howell, the bill supporters and the Joint Study Committee members are leaving Bethany Christian Services’ (BCS) license untouched even though BCS, a federal contractor, testified that they provide transitional foster care services to UACs in Tennessee. In other words, they admitted that they facilitate illegal immigration in Tennessee.

Sen. White presented the Senate companion bill without ever mentioning that the new non-traditional child care agency was being created specifically for UACs. 

The House and Senate bills are going to their respective Finance Committees; the House Finance Subcommittee passed it but placed it behind the budget.

Probably the most intelligent comment to come out of any committee on this bill was made by Democrat House member Mike Stewart. He made the point that if employers were thrown in jail for hiring “undocumented” workers, this could all come to a screeching halt. Stewart is right in mocking GOP concern about illegal alien kids given the GOP’s willingness to bend at the knee of NFIB and the TN Chamber who want to keep cheap labor flowing to the state as evidenced by the next bill on E-verify.

SB1780/HB1853 sponsored by Sen. Jon Lundberg and Rep. Clark Boyd. The bill was pretty much the amendment approved by the TN Chamber and the small business lobby NFIB, during the last legislative session when Rep. Griffey wanted to require all Tennessee employers regardless of the number of employees, to use E-verify (the Employment Eligibility Verification) program. 

Unable to pass his bill, Griffey folded and accepted the meaningless 25 employee threshold, but the bill never advanced in the Senate that year.

The Chamber/NFIB 25 employee amendment now being sponsored as a bill by Rep. Boyd was amended in the Senate by Lundberg to raise the employee threshold to 35 or more employees. Lundberg was also forced (by a committee Democrat), to confirm that illegal immigrant workers can receive workers compensation albeit not at the same level as work authorized employees. Some make a credible argument that Tennessee law builds in an incentive to hire illegal immigrant workers.

After the House passed the 25 employee threshold bill, it backed down, re-voted and agreed to accept the Senate’s 35 employee threshold. Does the Tennessee GOP value legal workers? The concerns and devaluing of hard-working legal immigrants and U.S. citizens is secondary to GOP appeasement of the business community. Never mind their own conflicts of interest and their willingness to abet the destructive agenda of the left.

It is difficult to understand the GOP resistance to mandating use of E-Verify program for all businesses. E-Verify is a FREE federal database which checks the social security numbers of newly hired employees against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security records to help ensure that the new employee is eligible to work in the U.S.

When Tennessee first passed its E-Verify law in 2011, businesses with 6 or more employees were required within one year to begin using it. In 2016, the General Assembly caved to special interest lobbyists and raised the employee threshold to 50 employees.

Consider that the highest number of UACs released into the U.S. are reported as boys ages 15 – 17+ except there are plenty of credible reports that the working age “boys” are actually adults lying about their age. Add to this factor, the reports documenting 67,000 illegal alien essential workers in Tennessee and the Metro Nashville government report of 31,000 illegal aliens living and working in Davidson County. Both reports are likely under estimating the numbers in light of the Biden open border policies.

SB2730/HB2712 sponsored by Sen. Dawn White and Rep. Dan Howell. This is another “now we’ll know after it happens” bill.  This bill reflects particulars learned during the summer hearing mostly related to statutory limitations on the Department of Children’s Services as to how they issued the license to the facility in Chattanooga and then dealt with the license after discovery of criminal behavior by certain staff at the facility and the incident of a resident running away from the facility.

The “child” who left the facility was discovered to have somehow made it back to his country of origin.

While the bill allows under certain circumstances for revocation of a DCS license, most of the bill is more about filing reports. The bill does require a license applicant to disclose any agreement they may have with third parties to provide residential child care services. This does not mean nor does the bill provide that a license can be denied to an applicant who has a federal contract to provide services to UACs. 

Neither of the Howell-White bills reflect any concern that UAC arrivals are part of a human smuggling operation. Rather, the bills work to accommodate the practice. Nor do the bills reflect any concern that U.S. HHS data from 2018 – 2019 shows that 79% of sponsors to whom UAC are released, were “without status” meaning that they were present in the U.S. illegally.

Bottom line in Tennessee on UAC arrivals is we will accommodate because as Howell stated, the “federal government says states have to”.

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TN UAC Arrival Numbers Indicator for Illegal Alien Employment Violations?

The federal government only reports county level numbers for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) arrivals if the number is 50 or more. This means that UACs may well have been placed in more counties throughout Tennessee than are officially reported and since information on individual children and their receiving sponsors is kept secret, state officials have no way to know where or even how many children being smuggled over the border are now making their home in Tennessee.

The latest data posted by the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services for UAC county placements only goes through May 2021 and shows that a total of 1,470 UACs were placed in the following counties:

Davidson – 719;  Hamilton – 161;  Knox – 88;  Rutherford – 104;  Sevier – 71;  Shelby – 327.

However, the state total for UAC placements is 1,775, suggesting that there are other county placements that do not meet the 50 reporting threshold.

Per federal policy there are three categories or levels of UAC sponsors, none of whom are required to have legal immigration status:

Category 1: Parent or legal guardian (This includes qualifying step-parents that have legal or joint custody of the child or teen)

Category 2A: An immediate relative–a brother; sister; grandparent or other close relatives (aunt, uncle, first cousin) who previously served as the UAC’s primary caregiver. (This includes biological relatives, relatives through legal marriage, and half-siblings).

Category 2B: An immediate relative– including aunt, uncle, or first cousin who was not previously the UAC’s primary caregiver. (This includes biological relatives, relatives through legal marriage).

Category 3: Other sponsor, such as distant relatives and unrelated adult individuals.

Category 4: No sponsors identified

On the issue of illegal immigration the Tennessee state legislature is most accurately described as taking “half measures.” Campaign trail big talk against illegal immigration never quite translates into full measures recommended by experts with E-verify being one of the issues. That being said, there are two action steps the General Assembly could undertake if they are serious about countering the negative impact of illegal immigration in the state.

The Tennessee Lawful Employment Act  is the state’s E-verify law. Discovered violations of the law that is in place to ensure that only individuals legally able to work, are hired. The TN Department of Labor & Workforce Development is responsible for investigating complaints that the law has been violated and if so, levy the prescribed fines.

Recall, that Rep. Mike Sparks was wringing his hands about fines being imposed on law-breaking businesses found to be hiring illegal alien workers. Someone in his district should remind him that the idea behind the fines is to remind businesses that they have to follow the law.

Tennessee’s law also allows lawful residents of the state to submit an E-verify violation complaint form – available here. The law also says that the money collected from the violations is to be put in a fund and used to enforce the law. Feel free to scroll through the violations here.

With the high number of illegal aliens making their way to Southern states, perhaps the Tennessee General Assembly needs to look at bumping up investigating and catching business violators.

Additionally and in some ways perhaps even more importantly, is a focused audit to determine whether driver licenses are being issued to illegal aliens, an issue not addressed in the most recent audit of the Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Driver licenses are a gateway document. They can be used to bypass being determined ineligible under the state’s E-verify law. They can be used to access almost all public services and is a key document which helps an illegal alien “pass” as if they have some type of legal immigration status. Oh yeah, and vote.

Tennessee’s driver licensing law could be considered one of the few full measure laws in that the documents required to actually get a Tennessee driver’s license are typically not in the possession of an illegal alien. The law also specifically does not permit the matricula consular card to be accepted as “proof of identification for driver license application and issuance purposes”. 

Banning the use of the matricula consular card state-wide for any identification purpose should be put into law.

There have been any number of cases where fraudulent documents have been used to obtain legal documents like driver licenses and other cases like the one in Massachusetts in 2017, where corrupt state workers were selling state driver licenses and identification cards to illegal aliens. Judicial Watch uncovered the trade in fake Puerto Rican birth certificates being used to get U.S. passports and driver licenses.

In February, Homeland Security busted a fraudulent document ring run out of Los Angeles selling counterfeit U.S. passport cards, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and other documents. 

No telling how many of these fake documents have been processed through Tennessee driver license centers or presented to employers with fewer than 50 employees and who can take a drivers license in lieu of using the E-verify database.

And it wasn’t that long ago that twenty illegal aliens in Tennessee were indicted for using fraudulent documents in order to work. Even border patrol catches illegal aliens using fake documents.

The UAC numbers and known county distribution suggest starting point locations where state officials should scrutinize compliance with the law. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cowardly TN Legislators (and Governor) Willingly Sacrifice the State at the Business Shrine

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.

Take Bridgestone (we’ll pay you to take the COVID shot), Tony Ludlow’s fitness program in Memphis (no vaccine no admission), and Williamson County medical center for starters.

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.

Gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee said he would have signed the sanctuary city bill. Governor Bill Lee, however, has been silent on the 67,000 illegal aliens taking jobs from legal Tennesseans.

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.

 

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Will Any TN House Members Vote to Protect Jobs for Legal Tennesseans?

On Monday, March 22nd at 5:00 p.m., every Republican House member will have the opportunity to vote against illegal immigration and instead, protect jobs for legal Tennesseans.

The bill in question sponsored by Rep. Bruce Griffey, is the enhanced E-Verify bill, HB801, which the Republican majority House Subcommittee on Banking & Consumer Affairs killed last week.

E-Verify turns off the jobs magnet which draws illegal aliens to the state, a growing problem in Tennessee.

E-Verify is a FREE federal database which checks the social security numbers of newly hired employees against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security records to help ensure that the new employee is eligible to work in the U.S.

“Individuals provide their Social Security Number when they visit a doctor, open a bank account, or buy a home. It makes sense that businesses be able to check the Social Security Number of prospective employees to ensure they have a legal workforce.”

Griffey has filed a motion under Rule 53 of the House Permanent Rules of Order which if passed, will enable every House member to “put up or shut up” about the growing problem of illegal immigration in Tennessee.

The challenge for Griffey, however, is that his Rule 53 motion to “recall” (ie, pull his bill out of the committee process), requires two-thirds of the House members to vote “yes”, instead of the regular 50 vote majority.

Legislators needing an “urgent” bathroom break or having to take an “urgent” phone call may absent themselves from a vote that puts them between the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB small business lobby, and the constituents who voted them into office.

Make no mistake, a vote against Griffey’s Rule 53 motion is the same as a vote against curbing illegal immigration in Tennessee.

Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), was conveniently absent from the Subcommittee when they voted to kill Griffey’s bill. Faison, who describes himself as a small business owner, also serves as the House Caucus Chairman. Faison received political donations from NFIB and the Chamber of Commerce, a mere five days before the start of the 112th General Assembly. Not much of a long-shot to guess that Faison will do what he can to defeat Griffey’s Rule 53 motion.

Jeremy Faison

NumbersUSA, a long-standing D.C. based organization which lobbies Congress for sensible immigration policies has said that “[t]he single best action Congress can take to significantly reduce illegal immigration is to require all businesses to use E-Verify.” A new bill has been introduced in the current Congress to again try and mandate that all businesses use E-Verify.

It is highly unlikely that the dysfunctional Congress will pass sensible immigration reform which puts the interests of American citizens and legal immigrants first. Until then, it is up to state legislatures to take action.

In 2007, NFIB reported that “[s]eventy-three percent of NFIB members” supported a phased-in mandatory use of E-Verify by all employers of any size because voluntary use “put[s] users at a disadvantage should their competitors hire undocumented workers.”

In Tennessee, current state law makes the use of E-Verify optional for businesses with fewer than 50 employees. When Tennessee first passed its E-Verify law in 2011, businesses with 6 or more employees were required within one year to begin using the system. In 2016, the General Assembly caved to special interest lobbyists and raised the employee threshold to 50 employees.

Its time Tennessee legislators should have to put action behind their fake opposition to illegal immigration.

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In other Tennessee immigration related news…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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