As the spotlight on the U.S.-Mexico border intensifies, Tennessee’s elected officials have been turning up the heated rhetoric and preventing meaningful immigration reform.
On Feb. 7, Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked a bipartisan border security bill that had been negotiated for months and could have radically changed U.S. border security and immigration policy. The GOP has long argued that the U.S.-Mexico border is one of our biggest domestic issues, citing national security concerns including cartel violence, the flow of drugs including fentanyl, human trafficking and an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Even so, nearly every Republican senator — including Tennessee’s Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty — voted against the bill, arguing it wasn’t tough enough.
“If my Democratic colleagues are serious about working with us to secure the border, they should call for a vote on the Secure the Border Act (H.R.2), which arrived in the Senate on May 15 and has languished without even a hearing,” Blackburn said in a statement.
“Any proposal that fails to secure the border is unacceptable,” read Hagerty’s statement. “I’m a hard no.”
Some Democrats said MAGA Republicans voted no to help embattled former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, in his quest to retake the White House.
On Feb. 4, Gov. Bill Lee joined 12 other Republican governors from across the nation in traveling to Eagle Pass, Texas, where they met with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The visit came in the midst of a legal showdown between the state of Texas and the federal government regarding jurisdiction over the border. Lee committed to “deploying two waves of state active-duty soldiers” to assist the Texas National Guard and Texas law enforcement agencies.
“This crisis will only become worse if immediate action isn’t taken,” Lee said. “That’s why governors are working together to do what the federal government won’t do, and that is secure our nation’s southern border.”
Republicans have argued that Biden could simply use his executive authority to address the border crisis, but the president has said that he wants Congress to act by sending a bill to his desk.
Local Impact
“Every state is a border state” has become a favorite slogan of many GOP leaders in Tennessee and beyond.
In September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to several municipalities in Middle Tennessee, stating that 573 “noncitizens” from Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras and Mexico who are going through the legal immigration process would travel to the area, specifically naming Nashville, Franklin and Murfreesboro. While the cities of Franklin and Nashville confirmed that they received the letter, there’s no evidence that any large group of migrants has been transported to Middle Tennessee, as seen in other parts of the nation.
“The City has not received any reports of individuals arriving in our City since this letter,” Franklin officials tell the Scene by email. “We followed up with the Tennessee Department of Homeland Security and they have not received any information about individuals coming specifically to the Franklin area.”
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security says the department didn’t receive the letter and has not received details from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about the planned travel of migrants.
Ogles introduced the 'GAZA Act,' which would prevent Palestinians from entering the U.S. through a humanitarian parole system
The letter went unnoticed by the general public until earlier this month, when reporting by several local TV outlets sparked some public concern. The letter even came up in a Williamson County GOP forum featuring three candidates for sheriff. All the candidates said illegal immigration is an issue in Williamson County. Candidate and current Williamson County Sheriff’s Office Detective Darren Barnes said “more than 500 immigrants” were bused to and dropped off at a Cool Springs hotel. Barnes later told Scene sister publication The News that he found out after the forum that he was misinformed.
Tennessee’s Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles called the letter and the traveling of migrants in the U.S. “DHS’s shady shipment of illegal aliens in our community.” Ogles has also introduced the clumsily named “Sending Evading Non-Documented Threats Home Especially Migrants Biden Accepted Carelessly and Knowingly Act” — or the “SEND THEM BACK Act.” The proposed federal legislation would mean that anyone who has entered the U.S. illegally since Jan. 20, 2021, would be “subject to expedited removal” even if that person “indicated an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution.”
On Feb. 2, Blackburn and Hagerty sent a letter to the federal DHS “demanding information” about the September letter, saying: “Releasing migrants into communities across the country is a dangerous and irresponsible attempt to hide the true extent of the Biden border crisis, and it is making every town in America less safe.” The same day, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said in a press conference that his administration has been in contact with state and federal agencies, as well as in conversations with other mayors and groups providing community resources for immigrants and refugees.
“One of our priorities of the city is to ensure that we are taking care of one another, and so we are looking at [whether] we have the capacity,” O’Connell said. “We used some of our American Rescue Plan funding to provide immigration legal services, but we need to understand also what’s happened, so that’s one of the things we’re looking for guidance [on].”
One group that provides resources for immigrants is Franklin-based nonprofit Better Options TN, which was founded in 2016 to help immigrant families find footing in Middle Tennessee, from finding reliable food sources to securing housing and jobs. Better Options CEO Luis Sura says hundreds of migrants arrive in the area each month; some stay permanently, and others move on. Most travel not as large groups of undocumented migrants, he says, but generally as families or individuals who are working through legal channels.
“Right now, the majority of people who are crossing the border and coming to Tennessee, they are under [Humanitarian or Significant Public Benefit] Parole or about to get their political asylum application,” says Sura. He adds that many migrants are looking to Tennessee over areas like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles for the same reason that many American citizens are moving to the state: because they’re seeking a safe, prosperous place to work and raise their families.
In 2023, Better Options TN helped 10 families become established in the area. He says all of them are now working and living without assistance.
“If we house these people and find them a job, which is very easy, these people are not going to be in the streets,” Sura says. “In three months, they’re going to be on their own, contributing to the community, contributing to the city with their taxes.”
At the state level, Republicans continue to propose legislation targeting immigrants. On Friday, TIRRC Votes — the political arm of the Nashville-based Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition — released a list of bills they’re advocating against in the state legislature. Those range from legislation requiring driver’s license exams to be administered in English only to a proposed ban on transporting undocumented people into the state.
Impeachment and Retirement
The border has also been a focus of Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green, who has been on a monthslong mission to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Green, who represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, called Mayorkas “the number one domestic threat to the national security of this country and the safety of Americans.”
Green delivered on his promise last week, when the House of Representatives impeached Mayorkas in a 214-213 vote — one week after they failed to do so in a 214-216 vote.
While the impeachment eventually passed, Mayorkas’ removal is expected to fail when the U.S. Senate returns to session, meaning that the symbolic victory for Green and other Republicans will likely remain just that — a symbolic moment in the ongoing political theater of an election year.
On Valentine’s Day, Green announced his retirement from Congress, saying, “It’s time for the Senate to step up.” He told The News that “securing the border and ending the border crisis will remain a top priority” for the remainder of his term.
