The real question is when will Tennessee’s new Attorney General turn his attention to how the legislature and governor are helping Biden violate U.S. immigration law?
On January 24, 2023, twenty states led by Texas, filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s new program to bring hundreds of thousands more illegal aliens into the U.S..
Tennessee is one of the states suing. The other nineteen states are Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Tennessee is represented in this lawsuit by the new Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
These states are asking a federal court in Texas to “enjoin, declare unlawful and set aside the Department [of Homeland Security]’s lawless parole program.”
The parole program addressed by this lawsuit will allow up to an additional 30,000 aliens per month (or 360,000 per year) from Venezuela, Ukraine, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, into the United States without explicit authorization from Congress.
Critically as it relates to Tennessee, migrants admitted under this this new illegal Biden program, will be automatically eligible to apply for work authorization and can stay in the United States for up to two years.”
The Shane Reeves “Workforce Expansion Act” passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed into law by Bill Lee, says that if you have work authorization, you are now eligible for commercial and professional licenses in Tennessee.
Tennessee Republicans have made work authorization the golden ticket for illegal aliens.
The lawsuit
The lawsuit document is structured with each state stating how the new program causes “substantial harm” to their state. Tennessee’s portion begins on p.27 of the lawsuit in paragraph 124.
Eight of the supposedly “red” states, Tennessee included, use illegal alien population data from the Migration Policy Institute, a self-described non-partisan think tank whose funders include, the George Soros Open Society Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration & Refugee Services, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. State Department, the Catholic League Immigration Network, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the JM Kaplan Fund, just to name a few.
Back in 2015, the JM Kaplan Fund paid $50,00 to help the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), produce a report titled Countering the Backlash, Strategies for Responding to Anti-Refugee and Xenophobic Activity from the New South. The $50,000 was funneled through the Migration Policy Institute.
Influence Watch describes the Migration Policy Institute as “a think tank that produces research and policy analysis advocating for permanent legal residence for undocumented immigrants in the United States and increased legal rights for migrants and refugees worldwide.”
MPI has also advocated that state and local governments need to provide better services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs), with an emphasis on legal representation to help ensure that illegal alien minors can stay in the U.S..
None of the twenty states that are suing use the relevant data from conservative immigration sources like FAIR or the Center for Immigration Studies.
Census-based estimates of illegal aliens living in Tennessee range from FAIR’s 162,000 (218,000 with their U.S. born children), as compared to MPI’s outdated 128,000.
In citing cost of public school education in Tennessee no mention is made directly about the annually escalating cost in the millions to teach English to non-English speaking students who may also be illiterate in their native language but the lawsuit does refer to the “approximately $46.7 million [expenditure] on healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants in its CoverKids (CHIP) program”.
Bad proofreading? “Undocumented immigrants” is the left’s language.
As the lawsuit explains, Biden’s new parole program requires new illegal aliens to have a U.S. “supporter” act as a sponsor. The lawsuit explains that “supporters” can include “individuals with Temporary Protected Status [TPS] and beneficiaries of deferred action (including DACA)”.
FAIR makes clear, that both TPS and DACA recipients “have not been granted ‘lawful status’. Rather, federal immigration authorities have acknowledged their unlawful presence and are opting to temporarily defer their removal from the country.”
This means that Biden’s new program would enable illegal aliens in Tennessee to sponsor bringing new illegal aliens to Tennessee.
Texas governor Abbott puts it simply – Biden’s new program is “flat-out contrary to federal law”. Tennessee’s “Workforce Expansion Act” is also contrary to federal law, and worse yet, abets Biden’s destructive immigration programs and policies.
Attorney General Skrmetti is taking on the new Biden program – any chance he’ll address what Tennessee lawmakers have done to his own state?
