Nashville has buckled on illegal immigration. Why are Memphis and Shelby County being allowed to remain defiant?
Representative Jay Reedy and Senator (now US Congressman Mark Green) carried HB2315 and SB2332 in the Tennessee General Assembly’s House and Senate, respectively. This legislation sought to penalize municipalities that acted as sanctuary cities and counties across the state.
Memphis, Shelby County, and Davidson County promptly turned their noses up and thus far have gotten away with ignoring this important state law. Briley lead this illegal charge in Nashville.
Today, Mayor Cooper upended Briley’s assault on the legal order of things. Nashville will, for now, comply with immigration law. Public Chapter 973 requires all law enforcement agencies in Tennessee to fully cooperate with federal immigration officials. While Nashville doesn’t appear to be fully cooperating, it is clearly returning to a more neutral default.
Memphis and Shelby County, on the other hand, are still refusing to fully cooperate with this law. Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, for example, made the post in screenshot below in January of 2019:
This is clearly not compliance with Chapter 973.
The legislature needs to take a long, hard look at what is going on in Memphis and Shelby County. While it did drop a JDAM on Nashville‘s illegal policy, Memphis is still laughing. We haven’t heard anyone at the state level say a word about Tennessee’s left division thumbing its nose at the rest of the state.
The reason lower level governments like Memphis, Shelby County, and Nashville pursue policies in opposition to Chapter 973 is power. We still don’t know exactly how the census will work out in 2020. It is fair to assume that at some point in the future leftists will again control the census. With no citizenship question, areas with large illegal populations gain a disproportionate influence in elections, without even voting. In many ways, this defies the principle “one citizen, one vote.” Power.
Shelby County is now the magnet county for illegals in Tennessee. We hope the state legislature acts to protect the interests of citizens.
