Bills mandate ICE cooperation, school status checks and criminalize information release, testing constitutional lines
The power to enforce immigration law rests with the federal government. But Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, has a vision for states working in coordination with federal immigration officials, and he’s attempting to test it out in Tennessee.
Earlier this month, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Miller had been meeting in Washington DC with Tennessee speaker of the house, Cameron Sexton, to craft model legislation for states around the country.
A few weeks later, the speaker announced a suite of eight bills that would turn state and local police officers, judges, teachers, social workers and others into an auxiliary extension of the federal immigration system. It makes the presence of an undocumented person with a final deportation order a state crime in Tennessee. And it mandates that officials report the presence of undocumented persons to ICE, while criminalizing disclosure of information about immigration enforcement activities to the public.
“The president’s behind us,” said Knoxville-area representative and deputy speaker, Jason Zachary, on a video taken from a talk with a conservative group, describing Sexton’s contact with Miller. “The president has promised his support on social media for us, and we are being told Tennessee will go first.”
