Tennessee Republicans on Thursday unveiled a slate of legislation targeting immigrants without legal status, crafted in cooperation with the White House, that could require public schools, vehicle registration centers, city governments and public health departments to verify, track and report immigration status.
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House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the legislation was written after months of close collaboration with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a key architect of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Tennessee Republican leaders said the legislation would serve as a “model for the rest of the nation.”
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One bill creates a new state crime for immigrants who remain in Tennessee after receiving a federal deportation order, a measure that would likely face legal challenge. Only the federal government has the power to set and enforce immigration violations, which have been treated as civil violations.
State and local courts would be required to cooperate with ICE agents. Another measure would require all local law enforcement agencies to enter into so-called 287(g) agreements to work with ICE. More than 50 local law enforcement agencies have currently entered into the agreements, but some cities, including Nashville, have declined to participate.
Republicans also alluded to legislation designed to close “loopholes” in the state’s existing ban on sanctuary city policies, a measure widely seen to take aim at majority-Democrat Nashville.
The measure will require state and local governments, including public health clinics, to mandate referrals to ICE and Tennessee’s centralized immigration enforcement division when individuals’ lawful immigration status cannot be verified. The Tennessee Attorney General would be empowered to withhold shared sales tax revenue from “non-compliant municipalities.”
Another would require law enforcement conducting traffic stops to detain truckers and others with commercial drivers licenses who cannot verify their legal status, then immediately turn them over to federal immigration officials.
Doctors, nurses, teachers and others seeking professional licenses would also be required to provide proof of lawful immigration status.
And written driver’s license tests, now offered in scores of languages, would be offered only in English, with a one-year grace period that lawmakers said is intended to accommodate international companies operating in Tennessee.
Another bill would mandate the use of an E-verify system for all new state and local government hiring. State law requires Tennessee’s private employers with 35 or more full-time workers to use the federal system to verify whether a person is eligible to work. Businesses with fewer employees can follow a different set of rules.
Republicans released few details about what might be the most controversial and impactful legislation: a bill requiring Tennessee schools to verify the immigration status of students. Details about how the information will be guarded or shared with federal immigration authorities are still being worked out, Sexton said.
“We’re doing the details right now,” Sexton said, noting he was awaiting guidance from the White House and the Department of Education.
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