Tag: TIRRC

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Why Do Highlander Center Directors Hate America? – Part 4

They hate the America which embraces capitalism.
They hate the America which embraces life even before it enters the world.
They hate the America which believes biological sex identification is real.
They hate the America which embraces law and order.
They hate the America which is willing to own its history and learn from it instead of erasing it.
They hate the America which offers earned opportunity to all.
They hate the America which rejects dividing people by the color of their skin.
They hate judging a person by the “content of their character.”
They hate America’s freedom loving ally Israel.
They hate Americans who are leading morally-framed happy lives.

Looking back at the different Highlander Center directors explains plenty about the socialist training center’s evolution into a full-blown gathering headquarters for Marxists. These leaders are willing to “use any means necessary” to achieve “liberation.”

What does it tell you about the objectives when their idols are communists like Karl Marx and Angela Davis who recently quoted a fellow Marxist explaining that the BLM riots were “rehearsals for revolution.”

In the Southern states Marxists posing as social and racial justice warriors will be financed by the likes of George Soros and “liberal philanthropist” Susan Sandler.

Sandler has chosen to invest $200 million dollars targeted “to areas across the South and Southwest that are experiencing rapid demographic transformation” ie, from legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens.

Founding of the Highlander Center

Myles Horton co-founded the Highlander Folk School in 1932, and served as its first director. First located in Monteagle, Tennessee the school was shut down by the state. The school was renamed the Highlander Research and Education Center, moved to Knoxville and in 1971 made one last move to New Market, Tennessee where it is located today. The school’s founders modeled Highlander after socialist training centers they had visited in Denmark.

Horton believed that the Appalachian poor were being taken advantage of by the wealthy capitalist elites. Anti-capitalism and Horton’s experience helping labor to unionize and strike, expanded his ideas about “social justice” and his desire to create radical activists who would change the social, economic and political order of the South.

Horton served as Highlander’s director from its founding until 1969, during which time, prominent civil rights activists like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. received training at the Folk School.

Subsequent directors ratchet up Highlander’s radicalism

Suzanne Pharr

After Horton stepped down, there was a succession of directors over the next thirty years until 1999 when Suzanne Pharr took the helm; she served until 2004. A self-described feminist and anti-racist organizer, Pharr had already founded the Women’s Project in Arkansas.

Before leading Highlander, Pharr joined with several other black and white gay women and founded SONG – Southerners On New Ground.

SONG is a multi-racial queer organization which seeks to be “a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South.” They plan to “transform the region” through leadership development and organizing.

SONG names the Movement 4 Black Lives (M4BL) and National Bail Out among its “comrades.” It just so happens that Ash-Lee Henderson, Highlander’s current director, serves on National Bail Out’s Advisory Committee.

SONG, along with BLM Nashville, Workers Dignity (which advocates for the workplace rights of legal immigrants and illegal aliens), and several other groups, formed the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition, the group which aggressively pushed defunding the Nashville Police Department in support of defending black lives.

A former SONG board member, Stephanie Guilloud now serves as a co-director of Project South where Ash-Lee Henderson once served as a regional organizer. Ash-Lee continues her relationship with Project South through the Southern Movement Assembly.

Another co-founder of SONG, Pam McMichael served as Highlander’s director for twelve years, but before her, Monica Hernandez did a short stint leading the socialist training center.

Hernandez was very active at the Highlander Center for many years prior to serving as a director. For ten years, she was on Highlander’s staff working on immigrant issues. During this time she also served as the founding board president of the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC). Since 2007, Highlander has been training TIRRC organizers. Hernandez now serves as the co-director for the Southeast Immigrant Rights Network and is a board member of the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights.

Before leaving her position at Highlander, Pam McMichael helped found Standing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), an organization committed to helping white people overcome the shame of their white privilege. Of course defunding the police and doing electoral work to “swing Georgia left” are critical parts of divesting whiteness.

SURJ lists chapters and affiliates across the U.S. including a SURJ chapter in Nashville, Memphis, Blount County and the Highlander Center where SURJ conducts its retreats.

SURJ and the Democratic Socialists of America have worked closely in campaigns including pushing for Nashville’s anti-police community oversight board.

It should come as no surprise that SURJ-Nashville’s founding steering committee co-chair Marie Campbell is the Asst. Director of Education at the Scarritt Bennett Center, a social justice education center in Nashville, and a Vanderbilt Divinity School graduate.

Allyn Maxfield-Steele and Ash-Lee Henderson are Highlander’s current co-directors.

Allyn is also a graduate of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School and was also an educator at Scarritt Bennett.

Ash-Lee’s radical Marxist pedigree was detailed in Part 1 of the Highlander series.

Today’s Highlander Center is led by board members and chosen leaders who openly affiliate with the Marxist Freedom Road aka “Liberation Road” whose overriding goal is to destroy the Republican Party and then work with groups like the Communist Party USA, Democrat Socialists of America and a “mass of independent political organizations (IPOs) to defeat what they call the “New Confederacy.”

These Marxists say the “New Confederacy which like the first confederacy, is rooted in the most reactionary, racist, imperialist and anti-democratic forces in the country.”

Ash-Lee and Allyn describe Highlander’s perspective of the South this way:

“We recognize white supremacy, capitalism, imperialism, and colonization as harmful systems that are designed to oppress and divide our communities for the sake of hoarding and maintaining power for the white, wealthy elite.”

And they are actively working their plan to bring down what they believe is our oppressive government and replace it with a communist China-styled dystopia.

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Nashville Metro Council & TIRRC – Pay to Play?

The TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), a Soros-funded organization, seems to consistently get special treatment from the Nashville City Council.

Granted, it helped that one of TIRRC’s now former co-directors is married to a far left Metro Council member. It also helps that the majority of the Metro Council members are open border far lefties who hate ICE and believe that criminal illegal aliens should have the same benefits and privileges as legal immigrants and American citizens. 

TIRRC advocates for illegal aliens and legal immigrants such as refugees and intentionally blurs the line between the two by using the legal terms “refugees” or “asylum-seekers” loosely to refer to all their constituency.

TIRRC is a named affiliate of the National Council of La Raza (renamed UnidosUS), the largest Hispanic organization in the U.S. which “lobbies for racial preferences, bilingual education, stricter hate crimes laws, mass immigration, and amnesty for illegal aliens.”

Two recent Nashville Council resolutions, one giving TIRRC money, and the other, giving TIRRC an opportunity to influence the selection for the next Chief of Police, were sponsored by TIRRC-endorsed candidates elected to the Metro Council.

Shortly before the August 2019 election for the Nashville Metro Council, three organizations came together to form the Nashville Justice League (NJL), a PAC whose goal was to move the city council further left. Of the 15 endorsed candidates, 13 won their races.

One of the those organizations was TIRRC Votes, the 501(c)(4) arm of TIRRC. The TIRRC-backed Metro Council candidates continue to deliver on their promises to help fund and promote TIRRC’s agenda.

Substitute Resolution RS2020-459, introduced, adopted and passed on August 4 was “approved” and signed by Mayor Cooper the next day. This resolution appropriated $1,244,000 of COVID-19 Pandemic Fund to nine non-profit organizations operating in Davidson County.

TIRRC got $50,000 and fellow traveler Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON) got $50,000.

TIRRC’s endorsed candidate Bob Mendes (who is also the architect of the 34% property tax increase), sponsored this resolution. In 2017, pro-sanctuary city Mendes introduced two bills that had they passed, would have made Nashville the most liberal sanctuary city in the country. The bills were withdrawn after state legislators raised a ruckus.

TIRRC is flush in the money department with the ability to raise over $100,000 annually in donations. Influence Watch has posted the organization’s 990’s which show that in 2016, TIRRC’s budget included revenue of $1,935,988 and assets of $619,228. 

TIRRC has 24 paid staff and its 501(c)(4) TIRRC Votes in 2019, employed six lobbyists. TIRRC has a newly built 7,000 SF free-standing $2.5 million dollar building which reportedly, is fully paid for. The building will also house a legal services clinic which would most likely be JFON.

Not bad for an organization claiming to represent the poor, down-trodden and lawbreakers.

TIRRC, JFON, the American Muslims Advisory Council and others, have been long-time resident partners housed in the Conxion Americas building called Casa Azafran. The newly empty space now houses a Catholic Charities social services office. 

TIRRC repeatedly tries to turn refugees, the people they claim to represent, against the government that pays for all the public support made available to help them start new lives in Tennessee.

Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON), another open borders organization, provides legal services to legal immigrants and illegal aliens.

In 2016, JFON was all about “defending unaccompanied minors.” UAC (unaccompanied alien children) arrivals enter the U.S. illegally, are under age 18 and for whom, “there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.”

One Tennessee example of the loophole of the legal definition of UACs is the case of 16-year old Edwin Mejia, a UAC from Honduras who in 2013, was transported to Tennessee and released into the custody of his brother, an illegal alien living north of Nashville in Madison, Tennessee. The following year the two brothers moved to Nebraska where Edwin struck and killed 21-year old Sarah Root  while he was drunk and street racing in his truck. Root had just graduated from college. Mejia posted bond and left town.

A 2018 report from the Center for Immigration Studies documents that MS-13 gang members have entered the U.S. as UACs. Available data shows that from 2014 part-way through 2017, over 4,000 UACs were brought to Tennessee.

The other Metro Council resolution, RS2020-431, introduced on July 7, 2020, sought to have Mayor Cooper include certain special interest groups, a representative from the Fraternal Order of Police, and a representative from the anti-police Community Oversight Board, to help select the new Nashville Chief of Police.

Three of the four sponsors of this resolution were TIRRC Votes’ endorsed candidates.

The resolution was amended to direct Mayor Cooper to work with TIRRC, the Equity Alliance, the anti-police Community Oversight Board, the (ultra left) Metro Human Relations Commission and the Fraternal Order of Police in the process to select the new Chief of Police.

Not only does the amended resolution name specific organizations, but it also adds new language, which read in the full context of the resolution, suggests that some of these organizations represent communities who are allegedly the most “impacted communities” which need a say in the selection process.

The Equity Alliance and TIRRC already have their interests represented since The Equity Alliance is part of the Nashville Justice League, the PAC which also includes TIRRC Votes and the Central Labor Council that helped get these same Metro Council members elected.

The Community Oversight Board’s (COB) agenda for the new Police Chief has already been laid out in a report issued by the COB in April 2020. The report was requested the COB’s vice-chair Andres Martinez who also serves as Director of Policy and Communications for Conexion Americas, a Nashville organization and named affiliate of the National Council of La Raza.

The COB report says that there are 31,000 illegal aliens living and working in Davidson County. A deep dive into the COB report shows that they are pushing for the MNPD to adopt four policies that will help illegal aliens in Nashville go undetected and to ignore the state’s sanctuary city law, something a new police chief could make happen.

Equally concerning about the COB report is the glowing reference to a resolution adopted by the Austin City Council after Texas passed a very strong sanctuary city law which was subsequently ruled as Constitutional by a federal appeals court. The Austin City Council resolution was specifically intended to obstruct and skirt the state’s sanctuary city law.

Nashville Mayor’s Immigration Task Force is also recommending that the Metro Council adopt the Austin City Council resolution. If that happens, expect to see the same in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis.

Now that TIRRC and The Equity Alliance have packed the Metro Council and maintain strong alliances with members of the COB and the Metro Human Relations Commission, it is reasonable to assume that voices regarding the new Police Chief will out-influence every other constituency in Nashville.

Posted on

Marxists Are Winning Local Elections in Tennessee! – Part 3 in the TN Highlander Series

Tennessee is rapidly becoming a Marxist political fantasy come true. In a super RED state like Tennessee which too often is undeserving of being described as “conservative”, Marxist-backed candidates are winning their political races.

Candidates don’t call themselves Marxists. Instead they use labels like “socialist” or “progressive” to camouflage their desired outcomes, which align with the openly radical left.

Jonah Goldberg summarizes it this way in Liberal Fascism – “In Italy they were called Fascists. In Germany they were called National Socialists. [later renamed Nazis] In America we call them progressives…”

Marxism provides the theoretical framework for communism and socialism – political systems which centralize power, suppress opposition and exert control over the masses using economic, social and psychological means.

There are many Marxist groups operating in Tennessee. They all act as electoral fronts with the same objectives and goals, such as the organization, Liberation Road – to fill seats in local elections with like-minded comrades, a sweet feat in a Trump state.

Liberation Road, Our Revolution, Nashville Justice League, Memphis for All, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to name a few, work in concert to get their candidates elected. They refer to each other as “comrade” as affirmation of solidarity with a Marxist movement to overthrow ordered government.

Student groups like the Vanderbilt Young Democratic Socialists of America and the UT Knoxville Progressive Student Alliance (which has nothing to do with being “progressive”), are becoming more engaged in local elections helping to provide boots on the ground to canvass and man phone-banks.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what they call themselves – it’s what they seek to accomplish that matters. The groups discussed below work in concert with each other, creating the “new political ‘us’” laid out in Liberation Road’s 2019 – 2022 strategy, which is an agreement to form strategic alliances to defeat their enemies – the United States Government, the Republican Party and establishment Democrats.

The bottom line for these groups – if you don’t support creating a totalitarian socialist/communist America complete with the economy killing Green New Deal, Medicare for All, abortion on demand and open borders to name a few, you are their enemy.

Our Revolution (OR) – federal and state elections

Our Revolution (OR) and the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) often collaborate to help fellow comrades win elections. The senior electoral manager of OR who was also the former deputy director of the DSA has disclosed that nothing prevents the forming of a two-sided DSA/OR local chapters. In a 2017 interview, OR cited Knoxville’s OR chapter which helped elect two DSA candidates to the city council.

OR is very active in Tennessee. It has a Nashville/Mid TN chapter and one in Memphis called Memphis for All.

In 2019, OR’s 6 endorsed candidates all won their races for the Metro Nashville City Council. Two winners along with another Metro Council member served as Bernie Sanders’ Tennessee 2020 presidential campaign co-chairs.

Our Revolution began as the 501(c)(4) arm of the failed 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. It now joins the mix of revolutionary change agents working to “grow the squad” and get more of their “progressive” radicals like Jew-haters Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib elected to public office. OR is also responsible for helping Ocasio-Cortez get elected.

In 2020, OR endorsed Nashville’s Keeda Haynes who lost her primary race for U.S. House of Representatives against 30-year incumbent Democrat Jim Cooper. But Tennesseans should not lose sight of the fact that Haynes took 44% of the vote.

OR also endorsed first-timer and BLM protest leader, Cori Bush in Missouri, who won her primary for Congress, ousting a 20-year incumbent. Bush’s campaign includes defunding the police which is part of OR’s “progressive” platform to “defend democracy.”

OR did not endorse first timer from Memphis, Marquita Bradshaw in the Tennessee Democratic primary for Lamar Alexander’s seat. After winning her primary, OR support for Bradshaw is now coming in the form of Cori Bush’s endorsement who herself was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Bradshaw campaigned as an environmental activist who was also an experienced labor organizer. She was first endorsed by the DSA. Her platform is based on The Justice Guarantee, (you have to read the 6 planks to believe it), which is supported by the Sunrise Movement and many other radical left wing groups including the ACLU. The Justice Guarantee platform is a project of Tides Advocacy which according to Capital Research, runs the Fund for Fair and Just Policing campaign funded by George Soros.

After winning the primary in Tennessee, Our Revolution’s Nashville & Mid TN chapter, Nashville Musicians For Change, Memphis-Midsouth DSA, Sunrise Tennessee, Vanderbilt Young Democratic Socialists of America, & Indivisible Tennessee joined together to endorse Bradshaw and are working to get her elected to flip Lamar Alexander’s seat.

The joinder of these groups follows the formula promoted by Liberation Road.

Our Revolution’s Nashville candidate James Turner for the Tennessee House, lost his primary to long-time incumbent Rep. Mike Stewart. But OR’s Memphis for All candidates fared much better. Gabby Salinas and Torrey Harris won their primaries, while Jerri Green and Andrea Bond-Johnson had no opponents in the Democrat primary. They will each face incumbent Republicans except for Harris who will be challenged by 26-year incumbent Rep. John DeBerry who is running as an independent after being kicked out of the Democrat party for being too conservative.

Memphis for All and OR’s Nashville and Mid-TN chapter, are part of Liberation Road. Thomas Wayne Walker, a member of Liberation Road’s National Executive Committee is also a Memphis for All Steering Committee member.

In 2018, Memphis for All endorsed and helped get former state senator Lee Harris elected for Shelby County Mayor. The group also added two county commissioners, Tami Sawyer and Racquel Collins. Sawyer, is a Black Lives Matter Leader and organizer of taking down Confederate statutes in Memphis.

The following year, Sawyer ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Memphis with support from Memphis for All and Marxist fellow traveller Highlander co-director Ash-Lee Henderson.

Memphis for All also endorsed and helped elect Katrina Robinson for state Senate and London Lamar for the Tennessee House. Liberation Road volunteers were noted to have helped Memphis for All canvassing in these districts.

In early August 2020, Sen. Katrina Robinson was indicted on 48 counts of theft and embezzlement of federal program grant funds.

Memphis Liberation Party

This newly formed group endorsed Marquita Bradshaw and is working to help her get elected. This group identifies itself as a “political party fighting for workers’ rights, environmental justice, and self-determination for the people of Memphis” and is promoting a comprehensive platform of demands to “liberate Memphis” from the State of Tennessee.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Knoxville’s DSA is an affiliate chapter of Our Revolution and has successfully helped three of their comrades get elected to the Knoxville city council running on platforms that reject capitalism in favor of supporting “working class interests.”

Seema Singh Perez was the first Knoxville DSA member to win a seat on the city council in 2017.

This DSA chapter is running the “City Council Movement” and two years later, the chapter endorsed three comrades for the council – Amelia Parker, David Hayes and Charles al-Bawi. Amelia Parker won an at-large seat.

In 2018, Knoxville DSA member Edward Nelson, endorsed by Our Revolution for a Tennessee House seat lost to the Republican candidate.

Anti-police Sean Parker in Nashville (no relation to Amelia other than in comradeship), is the co-founder of the Middle TN DSA, a fact he proudly shared on his campaign page. He was elected in 2019, to represent District 5 (hipster East Nashville neighborhoods), on the Metro Nashville City Council.

Chattanooga’s DSA chapter is just getting started by issuing a “list of demands on local government and business leaders to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the working and vulnerable people of greater Chattanooga.”

Highlander co-director Ash-Lee Henderson has deep agitator roots in Chattanooga. In 2012 she was an organizer with United Campus Workers, an organization that the college DSA chapters attach to.

She was also a Board member of Chattanooga Organized for Action (COA).

In 2014, working as an organizer for Concerned Citizens for Justice (CCJ) in Chattanooga, Ash-Lee was arrested while marching against alleged police brutality. That same year, Ash-Lee marched again with CCJ to affirm organization’s solidarity with Palestinians.

Don’t be surprised when Chattanooga Marxists start catching up to their comrades in Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis.

Nashville Justice League (NJL) whose tagline is “A New Power is Rising” helped 13 “progressive” far-left radicals get elected to the Metro Nashville city Council.

Shortly before the August 2019 election for the Nashville Metro Council, three organizations came together to form the Nashville Justice League (NJL), a PAC whose goal was to move the city council further left. Of the 15 endorsed candidates, 13 won their races.

Well into 2020, the NJL candidates have proven to be the “progressive” far-left radicals the PAC wanted.

The three organizations which organized the NJL are:

TIRRC Votes is the 501(c)(4) arm of the Soros-funded TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), which advocates for illegal aliens and legal immigrants such as refugees. TIRRC began its collaboration with BLM in 2015; this was during the time that TIRRC’s board was led by Daoud Abudiab, a Muslim activist.

The Equity Alliance Action Fund which is the 501(c)(4) of the Equity Alliance. Founded in 2016, The Equity Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, employs state-wide and community organizers, communications and operational managers along with two co-executive directors. This group organizes around issues of alleged police brutality, equity for people of color, and like every other far left group, maintains a 501(c)(4) arm which is working to vote Trump out of office and elect progressive socialists.

The Central Labor Council of Nashville & Middle TN (AFL-CIO) – Jobs With Justice has a chapter in East and Middle TN and is part of the Central Labor Council. Jobs With Justice lists the Highlander Center as one of their partners. The Council endorsed state Rep. John Ray Clemmons in the 2019 Nashville mayoral race. Clemmons is a fellow traveler of the radical left and is running unopposed for a fourth term.

The Nashville Justice League was recognized as an ally in Liberation Road’s July 2019 newsletter:

“The Nashville Justice League launched at the end of June to bring together the strategic alliance into the electoral field. This IPO Project is a new PAC, and a joint project with the Central Labor Council, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, and the Equity Alliance, a civil rights and civic engagement organization run by black millennial women. We are using voting pledges, social media advertising, and canvassing to break down the silos of our membership and combine our strengths to get true champions of justice elected. We are currently focusing on Nashville metro elections, but have our eyes set on combining the IPO city-based projects for 2020.”

Given the NJL’s core mission there is no surprise about the candidates they endorsed.

For example, Bob Mendes and Colby Sledge were the council members who in 2017, introduced two bills that if passed, would have made Nashville the most liberal sanctuary city in the country. Sledge is married to Lindsey Harris who until very recently, was a co-director of TIRRC.

The NJL also endorsed Zulfat Suara who openly admitted to being a socialist. She resigned her leadership of the TN American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) to run for the Metro Council. Under her leadership, AMAC board members began agitating against alleged police brutality. From the comfort of her new $650,000 home, Suara served as one of Bernie Sanders’ three Tennessee campaign co-chairs. Suara led her activist AMAC board to join forces with Linda Sarsour, a defender of Sharia law and intensely vocal anti-Semite, who served as “Bernie Sanders’s Anti-Semitic Surrogate”. More recently, Suara was chosen as a PLEO (party leader and elected official) delegate to the DNC. She nominated Bernie Sanders and voted “no” on the DNC platform because of the absence of Medicare for all and, following the lead of Jew-haters Sarsour, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the absence of “stronger foreign policy language, especially on Israel and Palestine.”

Kyontze Toombs, who serves as Secretary and General Counsel for the Equity Alliance was endorsed and won her Metro Council race so they now have a front row seat at the table.

Gicola Lane, another NJL endorsed, but losing candidate, was paid by Black Voters Matter as a campaign coordinator in getting the anti-police Community Oversight Board on the ballot and passed. This year she is an electoral justice fellow with the Movement for Black Lives, the policy setting umbrella organization which Highlander Center’s co-director Ash-Lee Henderson, helps lead.

Ringleader TIRRC has a long-established relationship with the Highlander Center which they list as a coalition member. Beginning in 2007, Highlander provided Justice School for TIRRC with “sessions combin[ing] nuts-and-bolts training on organizing and leadership skills with broader discussions of social, political, and economic issues related to immigration and the immigrant rights movement.”

Vanderbilt sociology professor Dan Cornfield and his wife Hedy Weinberg the TN-ACLU director who has also served on TIRRC’s Advisory Board, have been long-time supporters of the Highlander Center.

Cornfield co-led Highlander trainings for Vanderbilt college students and faculty organized by Vanderbilt’s Office of Active Citizenship with “programs such as ‘More Radical Than Communism’ and on ‘Becoming a Change Agent.’”

Our Revolution joined forces with TIRRC Votes in July 2019.

Sunrise Movement

Sunrise is a movement to stop climate change. Their platform includes pushing for more regulations and government control of the economy under the guise of fighting climate change. They are mainly college, high school and middle school students who have been inducted into world of the socialist/progressive platform.

They call their chapters “hubs” and have hubs in Nashville, Franklin and Knoxville. According to the Memphis Progressive Student Alliance, there will soon be a Sunrise hub in Memphis.

Sunrise Tennessee joined with Our Revolution’s Nashville & Mid TN chapter, Nashville Musicians For Change, Memphis-Midsouth DSA, Vanderbilt Young Democratic Socialists of America, & Indivisible Tennessee, to endorse U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Marquita Bradshaw.

The leader of the Nashville Sunrise Movement is Rick Herron, believed to be the son of Roy Herron, former chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party. Roy Herron served in the Tennessee House and Senate.

Party for Socialism & Liberation

The Party for Socialism and Liberation has been active working outreach to like-minded minority communities in Nashville and held an event at the Islamic Center of Tennessee.

UTKnoxville Progressive Student Alliance (UTKPSA) has close ties to both the Highlander Center and Liberation Road. The UTKPSA has become active in local Knoxville elections, endorsing Charles al-Bawi in 2019 for the Knoxville City Council.

Here’s an example of how these Marxist organizations work together. Thomas Wayne Walker, a Memphis agitator, is a member of Liberation Road’s National Executive Committee. During his tenure as an executive board member of the United Campus Workers (UCW) movement in Tennessee, he engaged the UTKPSA in a campus protest. At the time, Ash-Lee Henderson was an organizer for the UCW. Several years prior, Ash-Lee and Walker were together at a public option rally in Nashville.

Coming full circle, Ash-Lee, who is also connected to Liberation Road, is currently the co-director of the Highlander Center whose staff members Coy Wakefield (also a BLM organizer in Knoxville), and Andre Canty interface with students at UTKnoxville.

Following the Marxist footpath of Ash-Lee Henderson, Movement 4 Black Lives, BLM and the DSA, the UTKPSA has signed onto the Jew-hating anti-Israel platform.

 Vanderbilt Young Democratic Socialists of America (VYDSA)

In December 2019, the VYDSA was given official DSA chapter status. Following the model laid down by the UTKPSA, the Vanderbilt DSA is endorsing Marquita Bradshaw for U.S. Senate, and staying connected to Robin Kimbrough who was also a socialist candidate in the primary but lost to Bradshaw. Kimbrough says she’s coming back in 2022.

VYDSA has also connected itself to BLM Nashville and pushed the VYDSA members to lobby Metro Nashville council members in support of the Peoples’ Budget Coalition recommendations.

The VYDSA also promotes a “mutual aid network” meaning that its members should also connect with their local Our Revolution and/or Sunrise movement chapter.

Memphis Progressive Student Alliance (MPSA)

The University of Memphis PSA has been around for a while. In 2011, six students attached to the MPSA, were arrested along with Ash-Lee Henderson for protesting inside and during a Tennessee legislative hearing. In late 2019, however, the board resigned and the organization disbanded due to improprieties of its president. The MPSA has now folded into the Memphis Liberation Party.

Justice Democrats – a federal political action committee (PAC)

It is a great concern for our state that the Justice Democrats operate out of a Knoxville address. This organization successfully installed “the squad” (Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley) in Congress.  

They claim credit for Cori Bush’s win in Missouri. Of their 9 new candidates for Congress, 5 have so far won their primaries with one primary upcoming. Of the 7 incumbent candidates, 6 have won their primaries with one soon to come.

Incumbent Pramilla Jayapal, from Washington state, served as the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) which Ilhan Omar joined as soon as she was elected to the U.S. House.

 

Posted on

They Don’t Respect the Constitution, the Law or the People They Claim to Represent

The TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) repeatedly tries to turn refugees, the people they claim to represent, against the government that pays for all the public support made available to help them start new lives in Tennessee.

TIRRC willingly uses these people for its own political agenda and fundraising goals. TIRRC doesn’t even respect refugees enough to give them reliable and accurate information about core Constitutional issues like the ones currently being addressed by the TN General Assembly.

TIRRC doesn’t even have enough respect for the refugees they claim to represent to honestly disclose to them that nothing in the state’s Tenth Amendment lawsuit is anti-refugee or even anti-immigrant. The lawsuit is about the relationship between the state and federal government and who pays for what.

TIRRC won’t be honest with refugees about that information because it would damage TIRRC’s political propaganda and refugees might not see TIRRC as the immigrant champion it claims to be.

TIRRC uses refugees to help shield their advocacy for illegal aliens like opposing the anti-sanctuary city bill so that illegal aliens who commit crimes return to the community as opposed to being deported.

The six paid TIRRC lobbyists and federal contractors – each profiteers in their own right, use these people to line their own pockets.

There’s also big time fancy-schmancy lawyer Nathan Ridley, a former legislative services lawyer in the General Assembly married to Connie Ridley, who continues to be employed as the Director of Legislative Administration for the General Assembly.

Nathan lends a hand in helping TIRRC undermine Constitutional principles. Take a look at what Ridley considers his “accomplishments” – “[w]orked with immigration reform clients, Conexion Americas and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition to make residency requirements for Tennessee born college students with undocumented parents consistent with other students.”

Both Conexion and TIRRC are named affiliates of La Raza. “George Soros has generously funded Soto’s NCLR organization over the years in amounts typically exceeding $2 million.” TIRRC has also been blessed with Soros money.

Conexion Americas was founded and was led for years by Renata Soto who has been involved with leading and remains attached to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). She was also an Indivisible organizer.

“Angel Padilla an Indivisible Guide author, was an immigration policy consultant at La Raza in 2014. After leaving La Raza Padilla moved to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). Padilla and Soto may well have first crossed paths through La Raza. Beginning in 2012, Soto served as the vice-chair of La Raza’s board until she was elected as chairman in 2015. She remains listed as Chairman for La Raza’s 2017-2018 slate.”

Oh so very cozy with plenty of connective tissue like the fact that TIRRC claims partnership withIndivisible groups across Tennessee including the one in Greene County whose picture-posting member has been a recent source of “concern.”

“Indivisible was founded as an off shoot of former President Barack Obama’s “Organizing for Action” which trains people across the country how to use Saul Alinsky style tactics to go after political opponents. Its founders Ezra Levin, Angel Padilla, and Leah Greenberg, all former democratic congressional staffers created Indivisible immediately after President Trump was elected as a means to resist his agenda and encourage disruption to his policies on all levels.”

TIRRC has used a whole bunch of signage threats over the years like “Today we march, tomorrow we vote” and “Immigrants make America great.” On the issue of refugees, they’ve decided to counsel legislators about what is and isn’t moral.

That’s rich coming from an organization that gets its training from socialist organizations like the Highlander School, partners with the despicable Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and advocates giving legal protection to illegal aliens who get arrested for committing violent crimes in Tennessee communities.

Here’s a slogan which better describes TIRRC – “no low is too low.”

Posted on

Tennessee Elected Officials – is it the Tenth or TIRRC For You?

TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition’s political arm called TIRRC VOTES, has SIX paid lobbyists. TIRRC itself has 14 on staff, Soros money and is running multiple email disinformation campaigns on refugee resettlement, targeting state legislators, local county commissioners and any other locally elected official.

At it’s core, TIRRC’s agenda aligns with that of the New American Economy (NAE, formerly named the Partnership for a New American Economy) outfit, along with the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity (AFP), two big dollar organizations mobilized to push more legal and illegal immigrants into communities. Like TIRRC, NAE and AFP are pushing back on key Trump immigration policies intended to help American citizens prosper.

NAE, AFP and TIRRC like to push the false economic-enhancing narrative of legal immigrants like refugees and illegal aliens. TIRRC also thinks name-calling like xenophobe, racist and hater, is an effective tool to silence anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

While TIRRC’s coalition member the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) parades refugees turned Tennesseans, NAE puts out reports claiming that after living in the U.S. between 16-25 years, refugees are earn “well above the income of refugees who have been here for five years or less.” They also claim that refugees are the answer to reviving aging and declining communities.

TIRRC parrots these same points trying to deflect from the Tennessee issues. With regard to the federal refugee program, Tennessee legislators and advocates have raised the core Constitutional issue of federalism on the one hand, and the role of the state’s legislature to appropriate public money, on the other.

On these important state issues, it appears that Governor Lee has aligned himself lock, stock and barrel with TIRRC as opposed to advocating for the state’s Tenth Amendment rights and Tennessee’s Constitutional powers and duties.

Sadly, too many Tennessee’s county mayors regarding county level decisions on refugee resettlement, are following the governor’s abdication of educated leadership.

Before the President’s Executive Order on refugee resettlement was enjoined (but watch it be upheld in the end), Governor Lee, playing kind for a day, decided that he would issue a decree of YES for the whole state to take refugees and that all the counties in his land would have to defer to his decision.

Recently, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, showing fear of disagreeing with the king, said:

“It may be appropriate to wait at least one month to see what the legislature would do,” Ogles said. “We have to do the right thing for the right reasons for the people of this county. That being said, we do have a governor whose help we are going to need if we do want a new agriculture center. I don’t want to unnecessarily slap him in the face when the legislature is going to take action and basically nip this in the bud.”

Andy Ogles, Maury County Mayor, former TN AFP state director

Sounds like Ogles thinks the governor is vindictive. Ogles also forgets that the President’s EO asked the county level executive to make a decision even if Governor Lee chose not to follow the President’s instructions.

It’s not known whether Tennessee state House member Brandon Ogles is related to the Maury County mayor, but if the fact that Brandon Ogles hasn’t signed onto his colleague’s bill, HB1929, is any indication, the Ogles’ politics may unfortunately, be aligned.

State Rep. Brandon Ogles and TN AFP director Tori Venable

Remember, that Andy Ogles was the Tennessee state director for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a Koch brothers enterprise. Tori Venable, former staffer to pot advocate Rep. Jeremy Faison, is the current Tennessee AFP state director. Venable’s op-ed “

Willing to do anything for a paycheck, Venable and the leader of LIBRE, the Koch’s “premier pro-mass immigration organization,” co-wrote an oped titled, “Common ground is possible even when it comes to immigration.”

And they chose to focus on Nashville “because it’s a hub for tourism, commerce and innovation.”

Never mind that Nashville is also a hub for illegal alien workers, high refugee resettlement numbers, the headquarters of pretty much every radical anti-American government organization (like TIRRC), a chamber of commerce that will do just about anything for a buck, and a city council that will go to any length to protect illegal alien criminals from deportation.

The Koch brothers’ AFP is pro-mass immigration, legal and illegal, pushing amnesty for illegal aliens, “and endless free trade, and oppose the GOP voter-preferred economic nationalist agenda of less immigration and tariffs to protect American jobs.”

And they completely disagree with the President’s approach to the refugee resettlement issues. “The LIBRE Initiative, the Koch’s premier pro-mass immigration organization, says the reduction of refugees to the U.S. is “not warranted” in a statement supporting the Senators’ call for as much refugee resettlement as possible.”

Sounds like the Koch immigration industrial complex is 100% aligned with TIRRC’s agenda even if AFP didn’t actively work against the Tennessee anti-sanctuary city bill which TIRRC of course, vehemently opposed. Remember, the anti-sanctuary city bill was written to keep illegal aliens who were arrested and in jail for committing local crimes, from being released back into local communities.

TIRRC is opposed to anything that even potentially puts an illegal alien into deportation proceedings because TIRRC doesn’t believe that everyone should have to follow the law.

TIRRC uses legal immigrants like refugees to shield their advocacy for illegal aliens – all of which is intended to take a red state like Tennessee and slowly over time, create purplish-blue pockets. TIRRC well understands that refugees can become voters just five years after their arrival.

Take for example, Nashville’s Kurdish refugee agitators who were first trained by, worked for TIRRC and eventually became citizens. Same with a number of Somali refugee agitators. These former refugees are aggressive political agitators pushing TIRRC’s radical agenda for legal immigrants and illegal aliens and every other “intersectional” issue they can find.

They want political power however they can get it. They want the whole state of Tennessee to be just like Davidson and Shelby counties.

A 2018 study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research on The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States, pretty much affirms TIRRC’s radical agenda for Tennessee. That’s why TIRRC focuses on immigrants becoming voters and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens like the “DREAMERS” and constantly pushes the “we vote” narrative.

Groups like TIRRC, NAE and AFP use the false economic narrative to lure greedy, small vision elected officials and local chambers of commerce, to an immigration agenda which will ultimately hurt the American worker and upend core Constitutional principles.

But as AFP says, it’s all about “common ground” which for them is defined by money. Hopefully Tennessee’s elected officials understand what the money-grubbers don’t – abandoning Constitutional principles will in the end, make all that money, irrelevant.

Posted on

Bill Lee Tithes For the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program With Taxpayer Money

Why do millionaires like Bill Lee feel so free to use state tax dollars to live out their personal religious beliefs?

Remember when Bill Lee was campaigning and trying to dazzle gullible voters with his “brilliant” idea for an Office of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives?

Once elected he launched this initiative and it may end up being the vehicle for Bill Lee to funnel more state dollars to pad the pocketbooks of federal refugee contractors and other groups that want to get into the lucrative refugee resettlement business.

In fact, Bill Lee told us as much while he was on the campaign trail:

“My wife has worked in a ministry that serves Kurdish refugees, I’ve been to Kurdistan and served with refugees from ISIS in refugee camps,” Lee replied. “I believe that the work of nonprofits is powerful and important, and that’s what this is about. And I am a Christian, so my experiences and my work with non-profits that are doing effective work has been Christian organizations, so that’s what I talk about, because I talk about my experience, and I will support works that are doing, meeting some of the greatest challenges in our community that I believe government shouldn’t meet, it’s not the role of government to do that. But it is the role of the nonprofit community and I would encourage that kind of work, for sure.”

But he might just use the government to provide the greenbacks – we’ll get to that in a minute.

So why is anyone surprised that when offered, he jumped at the chance to say “YES!” I want to put Tennessee back into the refugee resettlement program!!!

And because of the 50-100 mile placement rules from the four urban centers where the federal resettlement contractor offices are located, when he consented for Tennessee, he pretty much put every county in the state up for grabs.

Shortly after the Governor announced consenting to bring more refugees to Tennessee, a Bill Lee Facebook devotee put out hints about what is in the works:

Kurds which seem to be a Lee-Blackburn obsession, are overwhelmingly Muslim and have been in a long-standing battle with other Muslims over terrain. Let’s also remember that the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a U.S. designated terrorist group is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is a multi-ethnic group of secular forces in northern Syria led primarily by the YPG, a Kurdish militia group.

So exactly how does the Governor plan to “hold Churches and Christian organizations accountable for the refugees they resettle in Tennessee”?

It’s so simple even Governor Lee figured it out – do it the same way the federal government holds states accountable – by attaching conditions to money.

Lee can use his Office of Faith-based & Community Initiatives to offer state grants to the hard leftist federal resettlement contractors who just happen to also be faith-based non-profits. They’re paid by the feds to only provide 30 days of service during which, they get refugees a social security card, enroll kids in school and get anyone eligible for TennCare signed up.

Churches that want to get into the lucrative refugee industry by providing services after the federal resettlement contractors finish their 30 days, can also get in on the state money.

Money? What money?

Was a hint thrown out today by House Speaker Cameron Sexton during hisradio interview about the Governor’s consent on refugee resettlement?

Could the money be coming from the state’s accumulated TANF (cash welfare) reserve funds?

It was reported on November 5th, that the Governor originally supported holding onto the extremely large accumulated bundle of TANF money being held by the Tennessee Department of Human Services:

“However, Lee changed course on Monday by telling reporters he was open to using the surplus on a variety of options to continue helping Tennessee’s poor. His announcement was coupled with news that the state was planning on spending up to $70 million of the surplus on grant awards to nonprofits throughout the state starting in January.”

Maybe like the non-profits involved or soon to be involved with refugees? Would the Governor’s church qualify?

Tennessee has sued to challenge the federal refugee program because of the federal government shifting federal costs associated with the refugee program to the state government. This has been acknowledged in federal reports. And the cost transfer occurs whether or not the state consents to paying these added federal costs.

No worry now, because Governor Lee has now consented to paying the federal costs transferred to Tennessee on top of the state incurred costs for the refugee program and is possibly willing to add some of the TANF money to the effort.

Conservatives in Tennessee who put Bill Lee in office get a lump of coal for Christmas while the radical left TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) congratulates it’s lobbying effort on the consent push:

“We thank Governor Lee for his moral clarity and leadership in making his decision today…‘Refugee communities across Tennessee have played a powerful role in defending not only the resettlement program but the values and aspirations of this country’, said TIRRC Policy Officer Judith Clerjeune. ‘We will continue to work with refugee leaders and partner agencies to advocate for a robust and generous resettlement program.”’

During Bill Lee’s campaign his first major policy initiative was his “Roadmap for Rural Tennessee” which he highlighted by riding around on a tractor and talking about “his farming roots” and about how Tennessee is just one generation away from losing this way of life.

Not sure what happened to all that rural love, because what we have now, is the rural governor scrooging Tennessee’s rural counties in deference to the urban-based federal contractor resettlement agencies.

Merry Christmas!                  

Posted on

Tennessee Soros Funded Groups Win Big if Governor Lee Caves on Refugee Resettlement

It’s no secret that the ACLU, TIRRC and the TN American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) have put Soros money into their bank accounts. After all, their political agendas – short and long term – are 100% aligned with Soros’ agenda for our country, especially the South.

Changing the demographics, particularly in Southern towns and cities, facilitates the bigger political agenda of these groups and George Soros.

Less conspicuous, is the support provided by organizations like the Nashville Chamber of Commerce. In 2001, they greedily took money from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) which was looking for new places to deliver refugees by “Building the New American Community” (BNAC).

One of the core principles of the BNAC project was for the new Americans to form coalitions, become voters and take leadership roles in their receiving communities. Let the transformation begin!

And that’s precisely what has happened with the help of groups like the ACLU and TIRRC (TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition) which helped spin off the AMAC.

These groups have led “the resistance” in Tennessee – opposition to every immigration related policy initiated by the Trump administration and every immigration related policy at the state level including the anti-sanctuary city law.

Even though these groups didn’t stop the sanctuary city bill from becoming law despite Haslam not signing it, they may very well win the fight on refugee resettlement with the help of leftist mayors, local chambers of commerce, county commissions, city councils, and Governor Lee.

Here’s what the left knows and understands – elected leaders on the right can’t take the heat that comes with saying no. The left knows that leaders on the right will use any justification they can think of – alleged economic benefits, reviving stagnant towns, need for labor, or a duty to “welcome the stranger.”

The left knows something else that Governor Lee may or may not know – consent is only required for refugee resettlement from June 2020 through the end of September 2020, which is the end of the federal fiscal year.  

From now until June, the 18,000 refugees coming to your towns and cities, are being restteled the same way they were under the 2019 guidance – NO CONSENT NEEDED!!!!

Add to this, that the Executive Order which set up an imperfect process for consent is currently being litigated by the federal contractors.

The left has made state and local consent about refugee resettlement a referendum on all of Trump’s immigration policies. They have broad-brushed the refugee agenda in a way to enable compassionate Christians to rationalize ignoring the political and demographic implications which in the end, will feed the anti-Christian agenda of the radical social justice left.

Don’t fall for it. The refugee resettlement industry has nothing to do with welcoming the stranger and these so-called religion-identified NGOs are unwilling to serve refugee interests unless your federal and state governments pay them to do it!

If you need further proof, consider that the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE) is a federal refugee resettlement contractor which was started and continues to be led by Gatluak Thach, himself a former Sudanese refugee whose bio suggests that he is a Christian. He already made his pitch for consent to the legislators, like one Christian to another. However, he aligns with the radical left, serving on TIRRC’s board alongside the former co-chairs of AMAC. By his organization’s own description, NICE resettles people of all religions and ethnicities including refugees from Somali, Iraq and Iran.

There’s a tendency to think that Sudanese refugees to the US are mostly Christian. Not so. From FY2011 to current, almost 85% of the Sudanese refugees brought to the US identified as Muslim.

As to all the misinformation about states being able to pick and choose which ethnic or religiously-identified refugees they prefer for resettlement it’s simple – they can’t. The FY2020 terms of consent specifically state:

The consent may not be conditioned on acceptance of certain refugees or on any other factor, such as refugees’ race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin.

For example, from FY2015 – FY2019, 812 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been brought to Tennessee. The on-going internal conflicts in the DRC are tribal, not religious. Refugee Resettlement Watch, reminds us that in 2013, the Obama administration promised the UN that the US would take 50,000 DRC refugees. “from fiscal year 2014 to today we have admitted 58,999 and there is no sign of the migration stopping” even though Jesuit Refugee Service reported this October, that “hundreds of Congolese refugees are voluntarily returning home.”

At the same time that DRC refugees were being brought to Tennessee, from FY2015 – FY2019, over 2,000 refugees from countries like Somalia, Burma, Syria and Iraq (over 80% identify as Muslim), also arrived.

Since October 2017, the beginning of Trump’s first full year setting priorities for refugee resettlement, through right now, 680 Syrians were brought to the US, of which, 601 identify as Muslims. This might be a good question to pose to Sen. Blackburn who is co-sponsoring S.2641, one goal of which is to increase the resettlement of Syrians.

Since President Trump set the annual cap for FY2020 admissions at 18,000, a total of 2,066 refugees have arrived with 33 resettled in Tennessee.

The SIV (Special Immigrant Visas) for Afghanis and Iraqis who supposedly helped US troops and who get to pick where they want to live, can arrive with refugee status, so far in FY2020, have numbered 2,857. Since FY2007, the US has admitted a total of 62,192.

Refugee Council USA, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry, has had its followers hounding governors, state legislators, mayors and county executives, with all kinds of refugee stories, mythical scenarios of how refugees revive dying communities and bring nothing but economic prosperity.

They also assure these state officials that the federal government 100% funds the program.

Completely not true. In fact, not even close. And that’s why Tennessee sued. After all, numerous federal reports have admitted to shifting the federal costs of the program to states and local governments.

But if Governor Lee caves and decides to consent to resettling refugees, the lawsuit goes away, Tennessee taxpayers pay the state and the federal costs of the program and the radical left resistance in Tennessee walks away with a big, giant political win.

The New York Times story from Monday mentioned that 16 governors, 6 of whom are identified as Republicans, have submitted letters consenting to continued refugee resettlement in their states. The State Department is supposed to post all consent letters on its website but that hasn’t happened yet. The only website keeping track is Refugee Resettlement Watch and by Ann’s count, only 9 governors have issued consent, 4 of whom are Republicans – Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire and North Dakota.

Is it possible that Bill Lee has submitted a letter of consent but didn’t bother to tell us? Have you taken the time to contact his office, your state legislators, your mayor, your city council or commission members? If not, why not??????

Posted on

Tell Greedy Refugee Contractors to Keep Their Hands Off Your Community!

But you’ll need the help of your mayor and your city council and/or commission.

President Trump’s Executive Order is giving power back to Tennessee citizens to decide whether they want federal refugee contractors to “transform” their communities with imported refugees.

Here are the rules of this game:

  • both the Governor and the “locality” for refugee placement, have to say “yes” we want refugees. This means they also agree to pay any and all short and long-term costs imposed by the federal program.
  • however, if either the Governor or the “locality” say no thanks, then supposedly, newly arriving refugees from overseas won’t be placed in that “locality.”
  • however, the Governor may consent to resettling refugees in only certain consenting localities within the state. This option is a total fiction and is as good as agreeing to put almost ALL cities and counties in Tennessee up for grabs for resettlement – even if they’ve never been an initial resettlement site.

FEDERAL RESETTLEMENT CONTRACTORS ARE ALLOWED TO PLACE REFUGEES ANYWHERE FROM 50 TO 100 MILES FROM THE REFUGEE CONTRACTOR’S OFFICE. 

                50-100 miles covers almost the whole state

This is just one of the many dirty little secrets that the federal contractors keep to themselves.

 And it’s been going on in Tennessee for years. Here’s the proof – the State Department’s reports show that over the years refugees have been resettled in Clarksville, LaVergne, Smyrna, Murfreesboro, Mt. Juliet, Franklin, Spring Hill, Shelbyville, Gallatin, Johnson City, just to name a few.

A few years ago, Catholic Charities of TN employee and federal contractor Holly Johnson who became the state refugee coordinator after the State of Tennessee withdrew from the voluntary refugee program, insisted during testimony to a legislative committee, that refugees were never directly resettled in Bedford County.

Well oops!!! A report subsequently issued by TIRRC about the victimization of Muslims in Tennessee, disclosed that in fact, at least 13 refugees had been directly resettled in Bedford County during the time period Johnson was asked about.

And just in case anyone (ie, Governor Lee) thinks you can pick and choose which refugees you get like maybe all Middle Eastern Christians, Refugee Resettlement Watch and Voice of America clear this up – no you can’t:

Again, by agreeing to ‘welcome’ refugees, your governor is saying your state will take any number from anywhere in the world!

Despite the consent requirement, state and local governments will not be able to choose which refugees it wants to accept, or to exclude certain groups.

Even the rules say you can’t pick and choose.

And just in case you’re thinking that the refugee resettlement industry has anything to do with religious prescriptions about welcoming the stranger – think again – it is first and foremost about money and cheap labor.

It wasn’t that long ago that Catholic Charities’ Holly Johnson, state refugee coordinator and federal contractor, wouldn’t even help the newly arrived refugees that had literally been dumped in Rutherford County by another refugee contractor who got their money, closed their office and left the refugees with nothing.

The State Department guidance says local consent or non-consent for bringing in refugees, has to be in writing from the “chief executive officer of the local government.

Open border leftist groups and the federal refugee contractors have been working at this for weeks. Some say December 25 is the deadline, others say January 21 and others suggest that the deadline can extend to June 1, 2020 when the new grant money comes into play.

But since the left has made this a referendum on Trump’s immigration policies, the sooner you get your local government’s support for Trump out there, the better.

Hopefully, Governor Lee will get the message about what voters in Tennessee want – the same voters who put him into office.

Knoxville’s city council passed a unanimous resolution to keep refugees coming and directed their leftist mayor to put the city’s consent in writing. There should be little doubt that Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga’s city councils and mayors will do the same in the coming weeks.

And it’s still critical to contact the Governor’s office and remind him that the federal government has admitted to transferring the costs of the refugee program to the states – the very reason Tennessee has a lawsuit challenging the program. If the Governor consents to refugee resettlement even for just the four counties where the contractor offices are located, the state’s lawsuit goes away and he puts almost every single town, city and county in the state up for grabs.

So what exactly Governor Lee’s office mean when they said that “[w]e will continue working with the federal government to determine the best outcome for Tennessee.” And who is he listening to??

 

What about the voters who put him into office????

 

 

 

Posted on

Nashville Agitators Want Criminal Illegal Aliens to Stay & Live Next Door to You

On July 22, 2019, ICE agents went to pick up “a convicted criminal alien ICE fugitive with an outstanding removal order” who was living in the Nashville Hermitage neighborhood.

That same day, a group called “Movements Including X” (MIX) – (X being a fill-in-the-blank for whatever far left agenda the group decides to take up), and neighbors of the criminal alien, took action to make sure that the convicted criminal stayed in their neighborhood, forming a human chain to help the illegal hole up in his house where ICE could not make an arrest.

One thing to know about the MIX group is that they absolutely hate the police. They were big backers of the anti-police community oversight board (COB). While pushing for the COB, Gicola Lane and Melissa Cherry were adamant that people like themselves should be in charge of overseeing Nashville’s police.

Gicola Lane is another Emerge Tennessee graduate. So is former AMAC chair Zulfat Suara whose organization pushed for the COB. Both women support illegal immigration and pretty much every radical position of the left fringe. Both of them ran for Nashville Council at-large seats. Anyone seeing a pattern here?

Emerge Tennessee says its mission is to change the South.

Pro-sanctuary city Bob Mendes reached the needed 10% vote to secure one of the five at-large council seats, leaving four to go to a run-off election. Suara made the run-off but Lane didn’t. No matter since these two would vote the same way. The only difference is that Suara will push her political sharia agenda and force the council to make all kinds of concessions on her behalf.

Under Suara’s leadership, AMAC pushed hard against the anti-sanctuary city law passed by an overwhelming majority of state legislators in 2018. In fact, AMAC said to “demand that Governor Haslam veto HB2315, an extreme anti-immigrant bill.”

The weak-kneed Haslam let the bill become law without this signature even though he had campaigned at one time promising to “do everything within my authority to be sure that Tennessee does not attract illegal activity.” Does it get any more pathetic?

Regardless of the state law, Nashville lefties still yearn to be a sanctuary city and keep criminal illegal aliens in their communities like the actions taken by MIX and neighbor Stacey Farley.

“Stacey Farley said she helped form the human chain and told WTVF that arresting her neighbors wouldn’t make sense.”

“I could see if these people were bad criminals, but they’re not, they’re just trying to provide for their kids,” Farley said. ‘The family don’t bother nobody. They work every day. They come home. The kids jump on their trampoline. It’s just a community.’”

The criminal illegal alien that Farley feels passionately she must help protect, was reported to have multiple arrests and convictions in Davidson County. The guy is also working illegally somewhere.

Not sure how bad a criminal you have to be to satisfy Farley that you shouldn’t be allowed to live and work illegally in the state.

On May 16, 2019, ten miles away from where Farley lives with her illegal alien neighbors, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee announced that an illegal alien and MS-13 gang member from El Salvador living in Nashville, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. This particular criminal threatened and tortured a federal witness – “pointing a rifle at him, strangling him with the rifle strap, spraying bleach into his eyes; and then attempted to suffocate hi by placing a plastic bag over his head” and finally threatening to kill him and his mother.

In another Nashville-based case, announced the same day, a federal grand jury indicted two illegal aliens on drug distribution and firearms charges. Around the same time last year, two illegal aliens were indicted as part of a group distributing heroin and fentanyl responsible for the overdose deaths of at least two people in Tennessee.

Stacey Farley says she’s committed to protecting her illegal alien criminal neighbors because she wants the grandson she is raising to “live somewhere safe.” She may be a lost cause to rational thinking but during his primary campaign, Bill Lee said that if he were governor, he’d sign the sanctuary bill into law because sanctuary cities and sanctuary policies “put our entire state at risk.”

If Lee really meant what he said, then why haven’t we heard a peep from him about what’s going on in Nashville?