A local nonprofit is working to increase awareness of the services they offer for immigrants as promises made by Governor Bill Lee may soon come to fruition – with harmful consequences.
Earlier this week the governor called for a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on January 27 to discuss a number of topics such as illegal immigration. Officials said this is to prepare for the implementation of policies introduced by the incoming Trump administration.
“The American people elected President Trump with a mandate to enforce immigration laws and protect our communities, and Tennessee must have the resources ready to support the Administration on Day One,” a statement from Lee’s office said.
Prior to this announcement, Lee said he would work with state law enforcement agencies to conduct deportations. He also signed a statement along with 25 other Republican governors announcing their commitment to the Trump administration’s effort to deport what they referred to as “illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities and national security” and “dangerous criminals, gang members, and terrorists.”
“We understand the direct threat these criminal illegal immigrants pose to public safety and our national security, and we will do everything in our power to assist in removing them from our communities,” the statement added.
Casey Bryant, the executive director and founder for Advocates for Immigrant Rights is making sure that the community is aware of the resources available to them in light of these threats.
“The real danger in that is creating a police state where someone who looks suspicious in some way to someone could be wrapped up in a system that doesn’t grant basic due process rights to people,” Bryant said. “It doesn’t just make this world more dangerous and insecure for people who are non-citizens, but it makes it more dangerous and insecure for people who look like non-citizens — whatever that means.”
When policies like these, which rely on visual identification, Bryant added they end up “degrading the rights of the whole.”
Bryant started Advocates for Immigrant Rights in October 2018, after realizing the gap in resources for immigrants given the landscape that the previous Trump administration created. The organization has evolved from a two-people operation to one with 17 staff members, including five staff attorneys – three of which are located in Memphis. Bryant and her team represent people in immigration courts and immigration offices across Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
Advocates for Immigrant Rights also provides wraparound services such as social services.
Bryant said that this increased vigilance could also lead to resources having an increased workload such as the facilities needed to process and hold noncitizens if they’ve been detained. These include the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities along with places in between arriving there.
She added that immigration courts that already have an “immense” backlog of cases could be affected.
“Adding more cases to that means that they won’t get processed for like 10 years,” Bryant said. “It puts people in a state of limbo for a long time, and it’s just impracticable. In the meantime it creates fear and suspicion in communities and non-citizens aren’t going to be able to engage confidently in society.”
In hopes of helping immigrants engage in society confidently, Bryant and her team make sure to stay visible in these communities as well.
“Our relationship isn’t just moored in a service provision,” Bryant said. “Even if our interactions are only transactional, each interaction has the same mentality that we’re not above them. We’re not sitting in an ivory tower. We’re just people wearing jeans and a t-shirt interacting with people who may not know what we know, but obviously they know other stuff, so we try to build rapport and confidence.”
Bryant stressed that there are way more people who need their services, than those who can provide. As a result Bryant encourages people to donate to their organization as they are a nonprofit.
“Another thing individual people can do is acknowledge the shared humanity and dignity of our neighbors who may not have the same kind of privilege to have been born in our country and take it for granted,” Bryant said. “Non-citizens have to know more than we do before they get to be a citizen.”
It’s extremely important to refute ill-informed rhetoric that can be spewed by media outlets and “mouths at family dinner tables.”
“We have a community here that has to deal with different issues and being more understanding of what those issues are will help us unite as a people,” Bryant said.
Courtesy: Institute for Public Service Reporting Memphis
This story was originally published by the Institute for Public Service Reporting Memphis.
When Ashlie Bell-Seibers hears about congressional plans to slash Medicaid spending, she thinks about children she knows in Tennessee.
Children like Asher, 12, who sees 17 specialists and who is able to live and be cared for at home because she receives special coverage through TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program.
Then there’s Claire, age 10, who was born with a rare genetic condition that required life-saving open-heart surgery covered by TennCare.
And Aundrea, 8, one of three children in her family with hearing loss, Her growing body requires new and expensive hearing aids covered by TennCare.
Trip, who died at age 2, and whose chemotherapy treatments were covered by TennCare.
“He would have suffered more and died sooner without those treatments,” said Bell-Seibers, who works to support children and youth with special healthcare needs as director of Family Voices of Tennessee at the Tennessee Disability Coalition in Nashville.
Bell-Seibers and other safety net advocates are bracing for severe cuts in federal programs that provide food and health care to millions of lower-income adults and children in Tennessee.
Republican congressional leaders are looking for $2.5 trillion in budget cuts to pay for tax cuts for wealthier individuals and corporations, among other priorities of the incoming Trump administration.
Two of the largest targets seem to be Medicaid (called TennCare here) and SNAP (formerly called food stamps).
“These are massive cuts, bigger than anything we’ve ever encountered,” Gordon Bonnyman, staff attorney and co-founder of the Tennessee Justice Center (TJC) in Nashville, told dozens of safety net advocates in a zoom meeting last week. “They’re going to happen very fast and they’re going to hurt a lot of people.”
Bonnyman said the massive budget cuts will be “camouflaged” in the arcane congressional budget reconciliation process, which is “filibuster-proof,” requiring the approval of a simple majority of members of Congress.
“There are infinite and complex ways for Congress to cut safety net programs without calling them cuts,” Bonnyman said. “Any significant cuts will hurt people.”
Some programs already have been cut.
Four days before Christmas, Congress declined to extend a program that allowed states to replace stolen SNAP benefits with federal funds.
SNAP benefits are delivered on cards with magnetic stripes (and not more secure microchips) that are vulnerable to skimming. States have replaced more than $150 million in stolen benefits since January 2023. More than 11,000 Tennessee families have had their benefits stolen.
“Punishing Tennessee families who are the unwitting victims of crime is exactly the sort of government inefficiency that Donald Trump and his team vowed to root out,” said Signe Anderson, TJC’s senior director of nutrition services.
Punishing Tennessee families who are the unwitting victims of crime is exactly the sort of government inefficiency that Donald Trump and his team vowed to root out.
Signe Anderson, Tennessee Justice Center’s senior director of nutrition services.
The TJC and other advocates filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday to hold Tennessee’s Department of Human Services “accountable for its persistent failure to determine eligibility for SNAP benefits on time, in violation of federal law, resulting in significant harm to low-income households.”
Last summer, a federal judge in Nashville found that the state unlawfully terminated Medicaid coverage for tens of thousands of poor families and violated their rights. “Poor, disabled, and otherwise disadvantaged Tennesseans should not require luck, perseverance, and zealous lawyering to receive healthcare benefits they are entitled to under the law,” U.S. Dist. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw wrote.
Meanwhile, advocates also are working to persuade Gov. Bill Lee to reverse his decision to forfeit federal funds for a program that provides free summer meals for up to 700,000 Tennessee children.
The Summer EBT program provides eligible families who have school-age children with a debit card preloaded with $40 a month per child. The card can only be used to buy food in June, July and August.
In a statement from Lee’s office, the governor said the Summer EBT program is a “pandemic-era” program that is “mostly duplicative.” He blamed “administrative cost burdens” as the reason he chose “not to renew our participation.”
But Congress made the program permanent in 2023. Tennessee received $78 million in federal funds for summer EBT last year and spent $5.7 million administering the program. Lee rejected $1.1 million in federal funds that could have been used to offset state costs this summer.
In a letter to Lee last week, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis), asked the governor to opt back into the Summer EBT program by the Feb. 15 deadline.
“Feeding our children is not just a matter of public policy,” Cohen wrote. “It is a moral imperative. Well-nourished children are better able to learn, grow, and lead healthy, well-adjusted lives.”
Summer EBT is a nutrition program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also runs the much larger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.
SNAP costs the federal government about $110 billion a year. It’s one of the federal government’s largest entitlement programs, and one of the largest targets for budget cuts.
“It is also the most effective anti-hunger program in the U.S.,” Anderson said.
In Tennessee last year, SNAP benefits — which average $180 a month per household — helped about 820,000 residents, or about 12 percent of the state’s population.
Seventy-one percent are families with children. Thirty-five percent are seniors or disabled adults. Thirty-seven percent are working adults.
Medicaid, one of the largest non-military programs in the federal budget, seems to be the most vulnerable target for massive budget cuts in Washington.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that covers acute and long-term health care for groups of people with low income, primarily families with dependent children, elderly people (65 or older), and nonelderly people with disabilities.
One in five Tennesseans rely on Medicaid (TennCare) for healthcare and for protection from medical bankruptcy. That includes half of the state’s children, nearly two-thirds of the state’s nursing home residents, and half of pregnant mothers.
TennCare is the principal source of funding for rural healthcare, including drug and mental health treatment and prevention.
“We need to keep reminding lawmakers what these programs do for not just us, but what they do for the success of all Americans. Before these programs get cut, the time to remind lawmakers is right now,” said Jeff Strand, director of public policy for the Tennessee Disability Coalition.
The federal government spends more than $600 billion on Medicaid each year. States add another $200 billion.
Tennessee spends about $1.4 billion on TennCare, an amount exceeded only by K-12 public education.
Republican congressional leaders are looking at several options for reducing Medicaid’s overall cost.
• Imposing a “per capita cap”, a limit on total funding per enrollee, on federal Medicaid funding. Each state would be assigned its own initial per capita cap based on the state’s current or historical spending. That amount would be set to increase each year, but at a rate below the growth in per capita health care spending. Thus, the cuts would increase over time.
• Turning Medicaid into a block grant program. States would receive a fixed dollar amount each year that wouldn’t adjust for changes in enrollment. Currently, federal funding automatically increases as enrollment or costs increase at the state level. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the caps would cut federal spending by between $450 billion and $900 billion over nine years.
• Reducing “provider taxes” states can impose on hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers as well as on Medicaid managed care plans. States use the taxes to offset their own costs for administering Medicaid programs. Restricting those taxes would force states to cut Medicaid enrollments and programs.
“These proposals would dramatically change Medicaid’s funding structure, deeply cut federal funding, and shift costs and financial risks to states,” the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported last week. “Faced with large and growing reductions in federal funding, states would cut eligibility and benefits, leaving millions of people without health coverage and access to needed care.”
“These proposals would dramatically change Medicaid’s funding structure, deeply cut federal funding, and shift costs and financial risks to states,” the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported last week. “Faced with large and growing reductions in federal funding, states would cut eligibility and benefits, leaving millions of people without health coverage and access to needed care.”
Safety net cuts could be especially damaging in Tennessee, where Medicaid is one of several social safety-net programs that the state doesn’t fully fund.
As the Institute for Public Service Reporting showed last year, those extra funds could have reduced the state’s child poverty rate by more than a third and the overall poverty rate by more than a quarter. That translates to about 90,000 fewer children under age 18 living in poverty in Tennessee.
In Nashville, Bell-Seibers wonders how many more children and adults she knows will lose access to health care in the coming months and years.
She also thinks about her own childhood battle with pediatric cancer and where she might be today without TennCare.
“TennCare saved my life,” she said. “TennCare allowed me to grow up and become a first-generation college student. TennCare allowed me to break the cycle of poverty in my family.”
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee called a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly on Monday, January 27th to pass his school voucher plan, though one Democrat called the move an attempt “to use an unspeakable tragedy as a public relations stunt and political leverage.”
Lee announced the move Wednesday morning, after much speculation that he would call the session. The session will focus on his signature Education Reform Act. But the governor will also introduce a “disaster relief legislative package addressing recovery needs for Hurricane Helene, as well as future natural disasters. The session will also address public safety measures regarding immigration, as the incoming Trump Administration has called on states to prepare for policy implementation.” Lee promised details of all of these in the coming days and an official call.
The announcement of the session Wednesday came with a joint statement from Lee, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), and House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland).
“We believe the state has a responsibility to act quickly on issues that matter most to Tennesseans, and there is widespread support in the General Assembly and across Tennessee for a special session on the most pressing legislative priorities: the unified Education Freedom Act and a comprehensive relief package for Hurricane Helene and other disaster recovery efforts.
“The majority of Tennesseans, regardless of political affiliation, have made it clear that they support empowering parents with school choice, and the best thing we can do for Tennessee students is deliver choices and public school resources without delay.
“Additionally, Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented disaster across rural, at-risk, and distressed communities that cannot shoulder the local cost share of federal relief funds on their own. The state has an opportunity and obligation to partner with these impacted counties and develop innovative solutions for natural disasters going forward.
“Finally, the American people elected President Trump with a mandate to enforce immigration laws and protect our communities, and Tennessee must have the resources ready to support the Administration on day one.”
Last week, House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) and Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) condemned the idea of Lee’s special session. Here are their statements:
Clemmons:
“It is inappropriate and highly offensive for Gov. Bill Lee to pair his voucher scam with much-needed relief for northeast Tennessee families. It gives one the impression that he is attempting to use an unspeakable tragedy as a public relations stunt and political leverage with several members of our body who have opposed vouchers in the past.
“We could have and should have held a special session months ago to accomplish everything we need to do for these devastated communities, but Lee clearly and purposefully waited almost four months until he thought he had enough votes to pass his voucher scam.
“There is nothing ’Christian’ about a man who demonstrates such callous indifference to the lives of Tennesseans and the well-being of entire communities as often as Bill Lee.
“I trust that my colleagues across the aisle are incensed as I am and that they will hold the line on their opposition to a scam that would decimate public education, blow a hole in our state budget, and directly result in property tax increases in every county.”
Lamar:
“Gov. Lee’s push for private school vouchers is a direct affront to Tennessee families and taxpayers. The current voucher program in Tennessee is failing to deliver the promised benefits to students while siphoning essential funds from our public schools.
“At a time when our communities are still grappling with the aftermath of recent storms, the last thing Tennessee needs is a special session to advance a flawed voucher policy.
“If a special session is convened, our focus should be on unifying issues that directly impact our citizens: Storm recovery to ensure that all affected communities receive the necessary support to rebuild and recover, affordable housing for our working families, implementing measures to alleviate financial burdens on Tennessee households, and preventing crime.
“Using storm relief as a pretext to promote a voucher scheme is a disservice to our families and undermines the real challenges we face. We must prioritize policies that strengthen our public schools, support our communities in recovery, and enhance the well-being of all Tennesseans.”
Here’s how others reacted to the news of Lee’s special session:
• Tanya T. Coats, a Knox County educator and president of the Tennessee Education Association:
“For months, East Tennesseans have been reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It is high time to address the needs of families and communities that are suffering.
“While the General Assembly considers measures to support those recovering from a natural disaster, they should refrain from creating a man-made disaster. Reducing the state’s support of public schools to pay for vouchers will leave local governments to try to make up the difference. They’ll be forced to decide whether to raise taxes locally or reduce services, which can mean firing teachers and closing schools.
“Small towns can’t afford to lose their public schools — where more than 90 percent of students are educated — because of vouchers. Rural communities depend on local public schools to do more than just educate their students — they serve as community gathering places and are often the largest employer. During the days and weeks immediately following the flooding in East Tennessee, public schools served as hubs for distribution of aid to hurting Tennesseans.
“Governor Lee should focus on helping our neighbors, not pushing his statewide voucher scheme backed by out-of-state special interests.”
Brent Taylor (Photo: Senator Brent Taylor
| Facebook)
It surely hasn’t gone unnoticed that state government is continuing to flex its muscles vis-à-vis local government in Memphis and Shelby County.
Officials aligned with the administration in Nashville are threatening outright takeover of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) system at the same time that state Senator Brent Taylor and helpers continue to implement their would-be coup d’état against the county judiciary and the office of District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
In the case of MSCS, the sudden out-of-nowhere power struggle between an apparent school board majority and first-year superintendent Marie Feagins has prompted what amounts to an ultimatum from Governor Bill Lee and the presiding officers of the state legislative chambers: Keep Feagins or else!
And Taylor has enlisted the same officials in his campaign to oust Mulroy, involving them in his bill of particulars against the DA at a press conference last Thursday that followed by a day a quickly improvised “summit” called by the senator to consider the case for a new crime lab in Memphis, something Mulroy has put forth as a major need for facilitating effective local law enforcement.
The list of invitees to the crime lab conference, styled as a “roundtable discussion,” included Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch and a virtually complete roster of public figures, state and local, who could be considered stakeholders in the matter of law enforcement.
There was one glaring omission, however: DA Mulroy, who was not only not invited; he was not even informed of the meeting, which was held at the City Hall of Germantown and concluded with Taylor suggesting an ultimate consensus that processing of local crime data in sensitive cases could be easily expedited via an existing crime lab in Jackson, obviating the need for a new Memphis lab.
A cynic could be pardoned for assuming that the entire thrust of the meeting in Germantown was to undermine the absent DA’s call for such a lab.
There was no doubt about the senator’s minimizing motive in his press conference the next day at the Memphis Police Association headquarters. It was overtly to “reveal the causes to be considered for the removal of District Attorney Steve Mulroy.”
Taylor’s bill of particulars against Mulroy was a duke’s mixture of complaints, ranging from prerogatives asserted by the DA that could be, and in several cases were, countered by ad hoc state legislation to innovative procedures pursued by Mulroy, some of them reflecting purposes that Taylor acknowledged sharing himself.
A case of the latter was an agreement reached by the DA with Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon to allow trial court judges access to Juvenile Court records. Taylor had sponsored a bill to do just that in last year’s session of the General Assembly.
A similar instance was Taylor’s inclusion in his list of Mulroy’s declared support of gun safety referenda placed by the Memphis City Council on the 2024 general election ballot and overwhelmingly passed.
“Many of us” could sympathize with the referenda points, Taylor said, but his point was that the referenda — calling for local ordinances on behalf of gun permits, an assault rifle ban, and judicial confiscation of firearms in at-risk instances — ran counter to state law.
Sponsors of the referenda had made it clear that they called for “trigger” laws that could be enforced only if and when state law might be amended to allow them.
And there’s a further anomaly here, given Taylor’s stated goal to “Make Memphis Mattter” and safeguard the city from crime.
One has to wonder why he isn’t pursuing an altogether different strategy, one calling for a legislative “carve-out” of Shelby County from current state law prohibiting the immediate implementation of the ordinances called for by the referenda.
Such a course would be consistent with the principle of home rule; it would also be supportive of a position taken by Mulroy’s Republican opponent in the 2022 DA’s race, then-incumbent Amy Weirich, who inveighed against the iniquitous consequences of the state’s increasingly permissive stripping away of gun safety regulations.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee confirmed Wednesday for the first time he would deploy National Guard troops to deport undocumented immigrants if President-elect Donald Trump makes the request.
Speaking to reporters after a groundbreaking event at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology on White Bridge Road in Nashville, Lee said no plan exists for Trump’s strategy to remove criminals who came into America illegally and no requests have been made to use Tennessee National Guard troops for deportation.
Yet Lee said he fully supports Trump’s plan to remove criminals that are undocumented immigrants, even though the next president has talked, not necessarily about removing criminals, but about deporting some 18 million immigrants, including U.S. citizens who are the children of undocumented parents.
“What I believe is that President Trump was elected saying what he wanted to do and the people elected him in a very strong fashion,” Lee said. “And I am supportive of his strategies going forward, and if that includes utilizing the national guard at the president’s request, then I’ll work together with governors across the country to do that.”
Lee previously issued a statement saying he asked state agencies to prepare to support Trump’s efforts to secure the nation’s borders and keep communities safe. That came after he spoke vaguely about the matter in a December press conference, saying the next president will set his strategies and the state would work to “implement strategies that work for Tennessee.”
He said that a day before the Republican Governors Association issued a letter signed by Lee saying it stands “united” in supporting Trump’s commitment to deal with the “illegal immigration crisis and deporting illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities and national security.”
The governor declined to speculate Wednesday about whether troops from some states might go into other states to deport immigrants if governors refuse to follow Trump’s orders to deploy their national guards.
A one-time mass deportation of about 11 million people who lack permanent legal status and 2.3 million more who crossed the U.S. southern border from January 2023 through April 2024 could cost an estimated $315 billion, according to the American Immigration Council.
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition previously condemned Lee’s commitment, saying the move would hurt families and the local economy. The immigrant rights group said business leaders, economists, faith leaders and legal experts believe such a plan would be “disastrous.”
Republican leaders in the Tennessee legislature back Lee’s willingness to use troops, while Democrats criticize it as an attack on the immigrant community.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected $1.1 million in federal grant funding at the beginning of the year, an action that will end free summer meals for up to 700,000 Tennessee children.
Lee’s adminstration indicated last year that it would not renew the state’s participation in the federal Electronic Benefits Transfers Program for Children (Summer EBT). His office told NBC News last month that it costs too much to administer the program, noting that the federal government began shifting the adminstration cost to the states.
The program issued a $120 EBT card, called Sun Bucks, to 700,000 children in Tennessee last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administered the program for the federal government. They were available for children aged 6- to 17-years-old for June, July, and August, when most children are on summer vacation. The money could only be spent on food.
Lee’s adminstration did not formally announce the rejection on any public platform. Instead, his office quietly missed the January 1 deadline renewal.
The rejection brought questions and anger from many.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) requested an explanation of Lee’s decision by January 17th. He said child hunger is “especially pressing in Tennessee,” where 40 percent of families report food insecurity, according to data from Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.
“While I understand your office issued a statement claiming that the program was ‘established in the pandemic-era to supplement existing food assistance programs in an extraordinary circumstance’ and that the program is ‘mostly duplicative,’ I urge your administration to reconsider,” Cohen wrote in a letter to Lee this week. “Congress’s decision to make the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) a permanent summer program through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 reflects the bipartisan recognition of its success and necessity.
“Feeding our children is not just a matter of public policy — it is a moral imperative. Well-nourished children are better able to learn, grow, and lead healthy, well-adjusted lives.”
Knowing that Lee’s decision on the matter was at hand, many Tennessee relief agencies advocated for him to keep the program.
The Nashville-based Tennessee Justice Center urged its followers to send Lee a form letter, which asked him to keep the program.
“In 2024, Summer EBT served over 650,000 children in Tennessee and brought nearly $79 million into the state economy,” the center said. “Tennessee children aren’t going anywhere. They will continue to need food during the summer months in 2025 and beyond.”
In a December opinion piece in The Tennessean, Rhonda Chafin, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee, said opportunities like the Summer EBT program are rare, and praised Lee for joining the effort in the first place.
“Opportunities to create such profound, positive change for children — at minimal cost to the state — are rare,” Chafin wrote. “By continuing Summer EBT, Tennessee can address child hunger, boost educational outcomes, and stimulate local economies simultaneously.
“Governor Lee has demonstrated compassionate leadership in this area before, and we trust he will do so again. The children of Tennessee are counting on us to stand up for their well-being. Let’s not let them down.”
Tennessee House Democrats were more direct in their assessment of Lee’s decision. Before Christmas, the group posted a photo of Lee dressed as The Grinch with a sack on his back, that reads “Food $$$.” The meme asks, “Will the Governor steal your child’s summer meals?”
The post also carried this treatment of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
“’Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the state,
Tennesseans were begging Gov. Lee to stop with the hate.
Letters were sent with stories of how,
Lee’s decision on summer EBT for children was needed now,
With hopes that he will renew the program with glee,
Gov. Bill Lee addressing members of the Tennessee National Guard while on a trip to the Texas-Mexico border in July 2021. Lee has indicated he may use state personnel, including National Guard troops, to aid in the deportation of millions of immigrants.(Photo: tn.gov)
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is set to use state personnel, likely National Guard troops and highway patrol officers, to back President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants when he takes office in January 2025.
The Republican governor issued a statement on the social media platform X last week saying, “I have asked key state agencies to begin making preparations & stand ready on Day 1 to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our Nation’s borders & keep communities safe.”
The statement marked the governor’s first confirmation that he is willing to use Tennessee personnel, which could include troops and state officers, to remove undocumented immigrants as part of a national effort by Trump to deport millions of people.
Lee sent the message on the heels of a statement from the Republican Governors Association saying it stands “united” in supporting Trump’s commitment to deal with the “illegal immigration crisis and deporting illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our communities and national security.”
Via X: “I have asked key state agencies to begin making preparations & stand ready on Day 1 to support President Trump’s efforts to secure our Nation’s borders & keep communities safe.”
A one-time mass deportation of about 11 million people who lack permanent legal status and 2.3 million more who crossed the U.S. southern border from January 2023 through April 2024 could cost an estimated $315 billion, according to the American Immigration Council.
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition condemned Lee’s commitment, saying such a move would hurt families and the local economy. The group said Lee and 25 Republican governors signed a letter committing to “utilize every tool” at their disposal, which would include state law enforcement and the National Guard.
The immigrant rights group said such a plan has been deemed “disastrous” by business leaders, economists, faith leaders and legal experts.
“Whether fleeing danger or seeking opportunity, immigrants enrich our state and strengthen our communities. Rounding up families is not just a moral disaster, but an economic one, crippling our businesses and agriculture and grinding production to a halt,” the coalition said in a statement. “Further, the state resources wasted on mass deportations could instead provide housing, healthcare, and education for Tennessee working families.”
“I don’t think ICE is big enough to handle all that due to the number of people who’ve come across the border who are criminals and committed crimes,” said House Speaker Cameron Sexton of using state resources. (Photo: John Partipilo)
Yet key Republican lawmakers are in the governor’s corner.
In a statement to the Tennessee Lookout, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said, “The illegal immigration crisis, which has been untenable for many years, exploded under the Biden administration. The voters of our state and our nation have made it clear that they want the crisis resolved and President Trump is committed to resolving it. Activating the National Guard to secure our border and assist with deportations is entirely appropriate. I believe the legislature would and should approve such an effort.”
House Speaker Cameron Sexton told the Lookout last week governors would make decisions with the federal government but added that he supports removal of some immigrants.
“You’ve gotta get illegals who’ve committed crimes in our country out of the country,” Sexton said. “I don’t care where they are, you’ve gotta get them out. I don’t think ICE is big enough to handle all that due to the number of people who’ve come across the border who are criminals and committed crimes.”
While Sexton spoke about immigrants charged with crimes since coming to America, Trump hasn’t always differentiated between that group and other immigrants who make up a large sector of the nation’s workforce.
Trump’s pick for “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said the president-elect made it clear he would prioritize deportation for immigrants who are gang members and considered dangerous, while also saying anyone in the country illegally “shouldn’t feel comfortable.”
Although the Republican Governors Association accused President Joe Biden of failing to secure the border, a report by the Migration Policy Institute shows the Biden Administration is on track to remove nearly as many people as the Trump Administration — 1.1 million for the roughly three years from the start of fiscal 2021 through February 2024 — compared to 1.5 million deportations during Trump’s four years of 2016 to 2020.
The report says the Biden Administration also undertook 3 million migrant expulsions during the Covid pandemic era from March 2020 to May 2023 for a total of almost 4.4 million repatriations.
Since the Covid ban on migration ended, the Biden administration increased deportations and removed or returned 775,000 migrants, the most since 2010, according to the migrationpolicy.org article.
Still, Trump has touched on using federal troops to assist in deportation, and Republican governors are showing a willingness to put state troops and officers into the fray.
The immigrant rights coalition said the governor’s statement gives local law enforcement and the National Guard a “rubber stamp” to “overstep their jurisdiction and forcefully detain our neighbors,” which sets a “dangerous precedent for all Tennesseans.”
If illegal immigration is as big a problem in Tennessee as Lee now claims and we have the legal authority to do something about it, then Tennesseans should ask Gov. Lee and this Republican supermajority why the state has failed to do more.
– Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville
The coalition’s statement adds the governor is “placing a dark stain on our state” and that it is “ready to defend our communities and protect one another.”
State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said the governor’s use of “bigoted talking points” is causing hostility toward his constituents. He encouraged the governor to visit his district in South Nashville to see the “thriving” businesses and children studying in local schools.
Clemmons acknowledged that dangerous criminals, gang members and terrorists in the country illegally should be removed. He added that the legislature approved $161 million for the Department of Homeland Security, $110 million to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and $18 million to the Military Department for related purposes.
“If illegal immigration is as big a problem in Tennessee as Lee now claims and we have the legal authority to do something about it, then Tennesseans should ask Gov. Lee and this Republican supermajority why the state has failed to do more,” Clemmons said.
Clemmons, though, said he believes the state’s jurisdiction and ability to enforce federal immigration policies could be entangled in “complex legal questions.”
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.
In a news statement, Lee explained that pardons are “an official statement of forgiveness.” They are granted to those who have completed their sentences and have been living freely in their communities for at least five years.
Other forms of clemency include exoneration and commutation. Lee did not grant either of those Friday.
“After thoroughly reviewing the merits of each case, I have decided to grant 43 individuals executive clemency,” said Lee. “Each individual case is unique and warranted consideration, and I thank the Board of Parole members for their thoughtful recommendations throughout this process.”
Executive clemency decisions are made in consultation with the Tennessee Board of Parole. That board issues non-binding recommendations for each case.
Travel funds given to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to speak at a conservative Christian conference broke state law, according to an opinion issued Tuesday by the Tennessee Ethics Commission (TEC).
The opinion was requested by Lee after he accepted expenses for a trip in July to speak at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Summit in July 2024, according to TEC. The only event scheduled on the ADF website for July was its Legal Academy, held on Marco Island, Florida. Lee was paid for “certain travel expenses,” though those were not detailed in a statement from TEC Tuesday.
The TEC ruled that accepting funds from the group to attend the event was a “prohibited gift.” That’s because the group’s ADF Action subgroup is a registered employer of a lobbyist in Tennessee.
Lee originally argued that the event sponsor — the overarching ADF group — and its political group were different organizations. Therefore, the the payments did not break state law. Though, he noted the two do share resources.
However, after a thorough review of state laws and the Tennessee General Assembly’s intent for enacting them, the commission said the payment — even though paid indirectly from ADF — still broke the rules.
“Even a cursory review of the information presented by ADF and ADF Action establishes a close working relationship in the pursuit of similar goals with resources shared to achieve their common purposes,” reads the opinion.
Aside from the names of the groups, another such “striking resemblance” of the two groups, according to TEC, are their mission statements. ADF advances “every person’s God-given right to live a speak the truth” whereas ADF Action advocates for “public policies supporting religious freedom, freedom of speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life and marriage.”
“ADF Action cannot escape the broad reach of the gift prohibition statute by its related organization — ADF — paying the expenses at issue, whether overtly or covertly on its behalf, or to advance their shared interests,” reads the opinion.
State Rep. Caleb Hemmer (D-Nashville) applauded the ruling, calling it a “misuse of power to take luxury trips paid for by interest groups, breaking Tennessee law.”
“The Ethics Commission has stood firmly on the side of the people, making it clear that the governor isn’t above the law,” Hemmer said in a statement. “They have ordered him to pay back the trip to Florida, funded by an organization employing a lobbyist in Tennessee.
“I hope this advisory opinion will stop lobbyist groups from offering these illegal and unethical trips to influence the Lee Administration.”
Hemmer said he was reviewing legislation to strengthen these ethics laws in next year’s session of the Tennessee General Assembly.
Some 60 percent of Tennessee third-grade students scored below proficiency in English language arts on 2024 state tests. Fewer than than 1 percent of them were retained under the state’s reading and retention law, and about 2.5 percent are no longer enrolled in public schools, according to new data.
Among fourth graders who had been promoted by receiving tutoring during the 2023-24 academic year under the same law, just over 1 percent were held back this school year, while at least 4 percent have left their public school.
The findings, presented by Tennessee’s chief academic officer to the State Board of Education on Thursday, show some of the effects of Tennessee’s 2021 reading intervention and retention law aimed at accelerating learning after the pandemic.
The controversial statute was pushed by Gov. Bill Lee, who said he wanted to draw a hard line to “stop the cycle of passing without preparation.” The legislature has since approved severalrevisions to loosen the policies and provide more pathways to promotion for students who don’t test as proficient readers.
State leaders are ‘encouraged’ by tutoring and summer program data
The big question is whether students are becoming better readers with the state’s interventions.
That includes summer programming, which began in each school system in 2021 to mitigate the effects of disruptions to schooling during the pandemic. About 121,000 students went that first year, and participation has leveled off to about 90,000 in subsequent years.
Chief Academic Officer Kristy Brown, in her presentation to the board, said attendance rates improved for recent summer programs, indicating that parents are finding value in them.
As far as academics, she said: “What we’re really seeing is the effects of decreased summer slide, or the lack of it, for students who are participating, compared to those who are not.”
Summer slide, referring to when students’ academic proficiency regresses during summer break, is a common phenomenon, especially for historically disadvantaged populations.
As for required small group tutoring, which younger students receive weekly during the school year if they don’t meet expectations on state tests, Brown said students testing in the bottom level, called “below” proficiency, are moving in the right direction.
In addition, almost half of the 12,260 fourth graders who received required tutoring in 2023-24 showed improvement as the year progressed. Over 14 percent of them scored as proficient on their TCAPs last spring, and nearly 33 percent met the threshold for showing adequate growth based on a state formula.
The data is the first available for fourth-graders who started receiving additional support after scoring below proficiency in the third grade.
“To finally have the numbers — to see that the needle appears to have been moved in a positive way like that — I was glad to see,” said Ryan Holt, a member of the state board.
Several other board members also said they were “encouraged” by the data.
Brown, the state’s academic chief, cautioned that gains can’t be traced at this point to any single part of the state’s reading interventions.
“It’s a combination of the things that we’ve done,” she said, “with professional learning for teachers, and summer programming, and tutoring, and those things customized for those students to see the gains that I think we’ve seen in Tennessee.”
Many educators and parents have been less enthusiastic.
The legislature’s most recent revisions to the law were intended to give parents and educators more input into retention decisions.
Many students facing retention used alternative pathways to promotion
After the 2023-24 school year, most of the nearly 44,000 third graders who were at risk of retention used other pathways to promotion.
Nearly 27 percent were exempted for various reasons, including having a disability or suspected disability that impacts their reading; being an English language learner with less than two years of ELA instruction; and having been previously retained.
Over 4 percent retook the test at the end of the academic year and scored as proficient.
Others were promoted through a combination of tutoring and summer program participation.
For the 12,260 fourth graders who participated in tutoring last school year, over 14 percent scored as proficient on the state’s assessment in the spring.
Over 32 percent met the state’s “adequate growth” measure that’s tailored to each student. It’s based on testing measurements that the state uses to predict the probability that a student can become proficient by the eighth grade, when they take their last TCAP tests.
And nearly 44 percent of at-risk fourth graders were promoted by a new “conference” pathway that lawmakers approved on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. It allows the student to be promoted if their parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively that it’s in the child’s best interest.
Any fourth grader promoted to the fifth grade via the conference pathway must receive tutoring in the fifth grade.
Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
