Tag: States Rights

Tennessee legislature moves a step closer to filing states' rights lawsuit on refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

All over the country, ‘Pockets of Resistance,’ are forming to oppose the heavy-handed (secretive and costly) UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program.  Tennesseans get kudos for being among the first to be recognized as resisters by the federal government as I learned here at a 2013 meeting the Office of Refugee Resettlement held in Lancaster, PA.
Now, the legislature itself may be on the cusp of striking a real blow for states’ rights.
See Michael Patrick Leahy, here at Breitbart:

The state of Tennessee is one step closer to filing a Tenth Amendment lawsuit in federal court to end the United States Refugee Resettlement program in that state.

Jan Reeves & Holly Johnson
Think about it! Private citizens heading up non-governmental organizations: Holly Johnson (left) of Catholic Charities TN and Jan Reeves of Idaho’s Janus Inc. call the shots, along with the feds, about how much state taxpayers must shell out for refugee programs. You know it’s unconstitutional!

The Finance, Ways & Means Committee of the State Senate overwhelmingly passed Senate Joint Resolution 467 in a bi-partisan nine to one vote.

The resolution now goes to the State Senate floor, where it is likely to pass, then on the the State House, where it is also likely to pass.

In Tennessee, the state legislature (called the General Assembly) has the authority to file this lawsuit, which may prevail in the courts on Tenth Amendment grounds, if Republican Governor Bill Haslam fails to act.

[….]

The resolution was filed in the State Senate by Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey a little less than a month ago on January 22, and has moved quickly through the legislative process.

Unlike previous lawsuits filed by Texas and Alabama, which were not brought on 10th amendment grounds, this lawsuit could result in a victory. Such a victory would not prohibit refugees settled in other states by the Obama administration from entering the state of Tennessee. It would, however, prevent the State Department from settling those refugees initially in Tennessee under any circumstances, since such settlement requires the state of Tennessee to pay, in part, for their upkeep.

“Wilson-Fish alternative program” states including Tennessee and eleven others (Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Vermont) who have opted out of the US Refugee Resettlement program have a strong 10th amendment suit against the federal government to stop the program in their states since it is “an unfunded mandate,” proponents of the resolution argue.

[….]

“In 2012, the Supreme Courte ruled in the now famous NFIB v Sebelius case in that case the Supreme Court said ‘a state cannot be compelled or coerced to participate in a federal program for which it has chosen not to participate.’

Continue reading here.
By the way, most people outside of Tennessee are shocked to learn that the state (especially Nashville) is a prime resettlement site for refugees seeded there by Catholic Charities in conjunction with the federal government.

Readers get moving!

For all of you in Wilson Fish states***, you must work to persuade your governor (or state legislature in some cases) to get on board with a 10th Amendment lawsuit ready to file at the Thomas More Law Center.  You ask me all the time, what can I do. Well, if you are a citizen in one of these states this is something you can do!
*** Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont

Letter writer: Refugee resettlement an affront to States’ Rights

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This letter to the editor from the Battle Creek Enquirer showed up in my alerts today.  I’m posting it for a couple of reasons.  First it raises that all-important point of States’ Rights and whether the federal government has the authority to simply drop off refugees to be cared for on the state and local taxpayers’ dime.

And, I’m posting it to remind readers to express your opinion publicly.  It won’t do any good to be well-read and knowledgeable about the immigration crisis we face and then do nothing about it.  While we still have free speech, use it, as this writer has done!  Figure out some way to reach new people every day!   [For the record, I do not know Patricia Cavanagh, but I am thankful to her for speaking out!]

From the Battle Creek Enquirer (Letter: Resettling Syrian refugees brings our ruin):

On Dec. 9, the State Department website reported the United State plans to lead in resettling Syrian refugees. “We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner Refugees) referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond.”

They are to be put on a fast track to citizenship and able to get their families here under The Refugee Act of 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. The cost is $2 billion per year and could cost $10 billion per year. Why hasn’t the news media disclosed these facts?

President Theodore Roosevelt said, “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

Oklahoma, Texas, Montana and Utah each passed laws declaring their states sovereign and not under the federal government directives. We the people should remind our state legislators of our rights given to us by the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Patricia Cavanagh

Coldwater

Editor’s note:  Sadly, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah are all big refugee resettlement states, Texas is the largest, so are they all talk and no action about reserving their sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment? 

Calling all lawyers!  To my knowledge, no one has ever challenged the federal refugee program (where the UN is choosing our refugees!) on Constitutional grounds.  We need some conservative legal group to step up!