Paris, Tenn.–The issue of illegal immigration is a continual focus of legislation introduced by House Rep. Bruce Griffey, R-Paris, in the Tennessee General Assembly over his three years in office, and Griffey just filed another bill for the upcoming January legislative session to address the topic.
Griffey’s most recent legislation – House Bill 1648 — focuses on what he calls the costly expense of providing free, taxpayer-subsidized public education to illegal immigrants in Tennessee and calls for defunding it.
“More than a quarter of Tennessee’s budget – over $4.8 billion a year – is allocated to funding K-12 education. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, in 2017, $383 million of the state’s education budget went to funding education for illegals. As illegals continue to flood across our border in record numbers under the failed policies of the Biden Administration, it is inevitable that this figure is significantly higher in 2021 than it was in 2017,” Griffey said.
“Tennesseans should not have to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses resulting from criminal acts to which the federal government is turning a blind eye. Tennesseans recognize the harm caused by illegals in our great State. This is why Tennessee voters overwhelmingly supported Trump both in 2016 and in 2020. In addition to costing Tennessee taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, illegal immigration also suppresses the wages of Tennesseans at the bottom of the economic scale. This must end, and, in order to bring it to an end, I want to curtail the ability of illegals to obtain jobs or benefits in Tennessee. I want to make Tennessee the very last place that illegals want to come,” he said.
Along this line, other bills that Griffey has filed in the past include:
* TN House Bill 614 (HB0614) labeled the “TN Lawful Housing Act”, which tried to make it unlawful to let, sublet, lease, sublease or rent a dwelling unit in TN to an illegal alien;
* TN House Bill 1239 (HB1239), which sought to expand E-Verify in TN and eliminate employment of illegals in TN;
* TN House Bill 662 (HB0662), which sought to prevent the State of TN from registering any birth certificate issued to any child born to a mother who is not lawfully present in the United States unless the father is a U.S. citizen;
* TN House Bill 1238 (HB1238), which essentially sought to prevent illegals charged with crimes in TN from making bond;
* TN House Bill 562 (HB0562) which sought to impose fees on money transfers by illegals from TN to foreign countries; and
* TN Joint House Resolution (HJR47), which called on the TN General Assembly to support President’s Trump’s efforts to end “birth right” citizenship.
Griffey confirmed that he will be filing other bills for the upcoming legislative session that will focus on the problem of illegal immigration in Tennessee.
Photo: Bruce Griffey installs a sign during his campaign. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Griffey.