In April 2016, the Tennessee General Assembly passed SJR 467 by overwhelming majorities authorizing the filing of a lawsuit to address the federal government’s commandeering of state funds to continue the refugee resettlement program in Tennessee.
The federal government is prohibited from forcing states to support federal programs with state revenues.
Yet this is exactly what federal governments have been doing all across the West: forcing states and provinces to support federal programs with taxpayer dollars, without limits and with little attention to public safety and feasible cost. Congratulations to the Tennessee General Assembly for standing up. Every jurisdiction should follow this clear demonstration of leadership. Citizens have been victimized for too long by irresponsible leaders.
“State of Tennessee Files Constitutional Challenge to Refugee Resettlement Program”, by Michael Patrick Leahy, Breitbart, March 14, 2017:
The Thomas More Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Tennessee General Assembly and the State of Tennessee in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on Monday challenging the federal refugee resettlement program for violating the state’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit places Tennessee at the center of the national debate concerning the operation of the federal refugee resettlement program.President Trump will be holding a rally in Nashville on Wednesday to garner public support for his agenda. His revised Executive Order 13780 temporarily halting the federal refugee resettlement program and temporarily banning travel from six Middle Eastern countries goes into effect on Thursday.
As a national non-profit public interest law firm, the Thomas More Law Center, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan will represent Tennessee without charge.
In April 2016, the Tennessee General Assembly passed SJR 467 by overwhelming majorities authorizing the filing of a lawsuit to address the federal government’s commandeering of state funds to continue the refugee resettlement program in Tennessee. In 2007, the state of Tennessee officially withdrew from the federal program but the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement unilaterally designated Catholic Charities of Tennessee to force continued use of state funds to resettle refugees in the state.
The federal government is prohibited from forcing states to support federal programs with state revenues. This issue of federal funding for the new, soon-to-be created federal program, was addressed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980, the enabling legislation, on the Senate floor prior to its passage:
“… the committee was mindful of the deep concern of many State and local agencies that Federal assistance authorized under these programs should be for a reasonable period of time – to assure that local communities will not be taxed for a program they did not initiate.”
The Refugee Act specified that 100 percent of each state’s cost of Medicaid and cash welfare benefits provided to each resettled refugee during their first 36 months in the United State would be reimbursed to each state by the federal government. However, within five years of having created the federal program, Congress failed to appropriate sufficient funding and instead, costs of the federal program began shifting to state governments.
Within ten years of passing the Refugee Act, the federal government eliminated all reimbursement of state costs, a huge financial cost to the states that was, in effect, yet another unfunded federal mandate.
The cost shifting to state governments has been documented in federal reports. For example, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2010, undertook a review of the refugee admissions program taking particular note of the costs associated with education and healthcare for refugees that were being passed onto state and local governments.
The Superintendent for Fort Wayne (Indiana) Community Schools confirmed that the cost of educating refugee students “regularly diverted [funds] from other programs.” The Fort Wayne-Allen County Commissioner of Health also testified to the fact that “[i]ncreasingly the costs of [HIV/AIDS] tests are being dropped on the laps of local and state governments” as well as the expensive life-long treatment for the high incidence of hepatitis B she accidentally discovered among the resettled Burmese. “…another significant cost the local community will be forced to bear.”
The lawsuit seeks to define Tennessee’s rights in light of the forced expenditure of state funds in support of a federal program from which the state has formally withdrawn.
State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris led the passage of SJR467 and described the suit as seeking declaratory relief in that it, “… offers a unique mechanism by which advocates may seek to remedy ongoing violations of statutory or constitutional law.
More Ham Ed says
The leftist guity-conscience-agenda says the U.S. has to bring in unlimited “refugees” and “immigrants” (gimme-grents). The following video from 6 years ago explains why WESTERN NATIONS CAN’T DO THAT.
Jack says
Ed it’s my understanding those behind this is the “Interfaith Movement” there are managers that are assigned several states each which includes all states, I saw the breakdown of their salaries I remember thinking wow this is very lucrative, I should have known at the time it would be people like me paying for it. The people in this movement are mostly Catholic, they’re actively recruiting these people who the vast majority are Muslims, sad that these professing Christians are ignoring the poor Christians in these Hell-Holes who are the real victims but cater to the ones persecuting them, I think these professing Christians have been sent”Strong Delusion” it’s the only thing that makes any sense.
More Ham Ed says
That’s true & It is written “the poor will always be among you” & the Truth actually helps people more than money. The Truth being the unaltered New Testament scripture.
SweetOlBob says
I’m not damning Catholics when I say that I am aware that Catholic Charities has been active in sneaking loads of “refugees” from muslim countries into the U.S. who are not Christians, but are muslims. We don’t needs the first muslim in the U.S., whether a true refugee or one of the crop of current lying welfare sucks.
I think they do this out of a misplaced sense of charity. Charity begins at home !
They need to spend their time in the ghettos and poor sections of the U.S. where one life changed for the better is worth a million buckets of tears shed for supposed refugees.
Carolyne says
“Money makes the world go ’round.” There’s money in “Refugees.” You will find the Church where the money is.
DFD says
Carolyne says: “… There’s money in “Refugees.” You will find the Church where the money is.”
Yes Carolyne. To give you some ideas, in Germany the Churches make €30,00 per day per colonist. At ~2million colonists, that comes to… €60million per day. That’s 21.9 billion per year – or 694.444 Euros per second. A € and a $ are roughly equal. Now, to that you have to add the monies made by various suppliers of items and services, NGOs etc. The Junge Freiheit once referred to it as the ‘Asylum Industry’. About six months ago I read that in Sweden, about 1/10th the population of Germany, that industry makes even more money.
Further, something that would have been ***utterly unthinkable*** in Germany ten years ago: Namely that some pensioners have to sift through garbage cans for food. It’s now reality.
Angemon says
“I saw the breakdown of their salaries I remember thinking wow this is very lucrative
And in addition to being lucrative, they can also feel good for helping a class being presented as “oppressed”. It’s a very dangerous combination.
Jack says
Great article something the Marxist puppets on the so-called news networks aren’t discussing.
IQ al Rassooli says
Please spread the following video PROVING in 6 minutes that Muslims will NEVER be LOYAL citizens anywhere NOT Islamic
This video has more than one million views already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJnW8HRHLLw&t=2s
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
mortimer says
Migrant expenses are unfairly being dropped onto the local regional and civic governments in particular… WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT. They cannot bear the burden of INTERNATIONAL clients when they are having limits on how much they can spend on the LOCAL NEEDY.
Dropping many thousand migrants onto local welfare systems is UNFAIR to needy people of the US.
SweetOlBob says
Tennessee should be very aware of this problem (and evidently is) After the bribing, suing, propaganda, and lies encountered in Murfreesboro over the construction of a mega-mosque that was fought unsuccessfully by residents.
Also the problems in Shelbyville Tn. with Somalis who were dumped there in a pod by the little muslim squat, Obama.
somehistory says
This taking by the federal government is proof that when laws are enacted, they target the law-abiding and the poor most of all. The ones in the federal government get away with breaking laws and continue to make laws that hurt the rest of the population.
For some reason, lawmakers who live off the taxes of hard-working people (even taxes are paid by the poor), seem to think there is an unlimited supply of funds for any and all…even evil…plans by those who live off the fruits of others. That is why they raise taxes and make more and more regulations that increase fees and other burdens.
Guest says
The tenth amendment states that anything not within The Constitution does not belong in the jurisdiction of the federal government and cases are to be tried in state government.
The Constitution also states that immigration cases fall into the jurisdiction of the Executive branch of the Federal government.
The state of Tennessee don’t have the right to say who stays and who go’s
somehistory says
Your comment indicates that you do not understand the article.
Stan Lee says
There are Christians and there are Marxists masquerading as Christians when a need to be “Christian” arises. How they can stand with the Muslims, whose own manual of instructions (koran) directs conquest of “unbelievers” and reveals Muslim doctrine despite how they may deny same. Whatever they do, however they vouch for peaceful existence of all people, directions from their koran are ultimately followed to the letter, Those instructions remain and the koran is distributed to all of Islam with the intention that ordinary Muslims literally act upon those words in order to demonstrate that “their god is greater.” “Allahu akbar” does not mean “god is great,” that’s a misinterpretation commonly spread. It is actually “god is greater!”
They have no intention of living harmoniously alongside believers of any other known faith, Islam’s ultimate objective in this world is to create a “world caliphate” while repeating ” world caliphate” options to the non-Muslims, which are conversion to Islam under the duress of an Islamic-ordered additional tax to those of any other faith if they wish to continue living in an Islamic governed territory, departure from the land in question, or death upon refusal to Islamic edicts.
Egypt could be an example of the perils of Coptic Christian lives, under that religion which is older than Islam. Though some Coptic Christians still live in their original homeland, a few times per month reports of Coptic Christians being murdered, homes and churches burned, Coptics found crucified from crosses…all at the hands of Muslim-Egyptian mobs and it never stops. So much for any particular safe living in Muslim dominated lands. Egypt could be the least murderous of Islamic countries and still murder is a way for Muslims to demonstrate that their god is greater” Greater than whom? Any other theology with any other god but their god, Allah.
Anywhere Islam abuts any other theology there is non-Muslim blood shed before any response to Islam ever occurs, if response even occurs.
StacyGirl says
It seems there’s always a desperate rush to swear these people in as citizens when they can barely speak English.