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.”

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.

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.