Ten state Republicans, five from the House and five from the Senate have been chosen to serve on a joint task force to examine the issue of the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being transported to and housed in a federally contracted facility. The trafficking of these minor children is being abetted by the pastor of the church which has leased its property to the federal contractor identified as the Baptiste Group.
Sen. Todd Gardenhire who was appointed to serve on the task force has made it clear that he wants more of these children brought to Tennessee so they can be reunited with “loved ones”.
This past March, very disturbing video from the border was captured and posted showing exactly what happens to these children at the hands of the human traffickers often paid by the parents and other “loved ones” to smuggle the children across the border, or in the case of the three and five- year old sisters in the video, have them literally dropped over the 14-ft. border wall and left to fend for themselves until rescued by border patrol.
The story of these two toddlers is made worse yet with the admission that their parents who are already in the U.S. and likely here illegally themselves, paid the coyotes and entrusted these strangers with their very young children. Fortunately, border patrol rescued these children.
Every Tennessee legislator and in particular, Gardenhire needs to see this video before they start yammering about welcoming these children and creating the incentive for children to be trafficked. And for sure, they need to watch this video before they start moralizing to American citizens and legal immigrants about supporting the smuggling pipeline.
At the very least, make sure you send the video to your state legislators and especially the ten appointed to the task force. The ten are:
Senators – Dawn White, Todd Gardenhire, Ed Jackson, Richard Brigss and Bo Watson; House Reps – Chris Todd, Dan Howell, Scotty Campbell, Bruce Griffey, and Ryan Williams.
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.
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.
