Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist, Dr. Carol Swain to the newsmakers to discuss Trump’s refugee resettlement executive order that’s been illegally reformed by President Biden and how Tennessee should respond.
Leahy: On our newsmaker line all-star panelist Carol Swain. Carol, I have a story up at Breitbart. Headline: Biden’s Revocation of Trump’s Order Leaves Refugee Resettlement Opponents With Few Options. Let me just read the beginning of it and then get your reaction. President Joe Biden’s revocation of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13888 requiring state and local consultation prior to the resettlement of refugees in any community may be an indication in administration plans to ignore a key requirement of the Refugee Act of 1980.
Federal courts, however, currently seem unlikely to side with critics of the refugee resettlement program who have long argued that the Refugee Act of 1980 requires state and local consultation prior to the resettlement of refugees in the community. And the Refugee Act of 1980 is pretty clear. It says that the federal government “shall consult regularly with states and localities concerning sponsorship and intended distribution of refugees.”
It also says that the federal government shall consult regularly with state and local governments concerning the process. Now, it’s interesting here to see that the president’s executive order basically said that some states don’t think that the federal government is consulting properly with them. And so he gave state governments the idea to say no.
In Texas, they said no. In Tennessee without talking to the Tennessee General Assembly Governor Bill Lee didn’t say anything. That executive order has gone to a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal which said no, the federal government is consulting properly. It’s not going to be brought up to the Supreme Court. And basically, the bottom line is Texas is now the only state that really has a strong position because they said they didn’t want more refugees to file a lawsuit. What do you make of this? And what should Governor Bill Lee do here in Tennessee?
Swain: Well, first of all, the Biden executive order to me is a violation of federalism. And Governor Lee and other states that have an interest, I think they should push back. And where are the federal judges appointed by conservatives? Why aren’t they filing lawsuits in the same way that Democrats started President Trump? They could file their own injunctions and that would force it up to the Supreme Court.
Leahy: Well, that’s exactly right. The federal courts and the Circuit Court of Appeals earlier in January said that the Trump executive order was moot. That court of appeals had two Obama-appointed judges and one Clinton-appointed judge. That is not going to go up to the Supreme Court because the defendant was the Federal Government. It’s going to be up to the states to challenge this. I think Texas will. Looking at Governor Bill Lee I think the Tennessee General Assembly wants to challenge it. I don’t think Governor Bill Lee wants to challenge it. What do you think of that?
Swain: Well, I think that it’s up to us the Tennessee voters to exert our influence on Governor Lee because we know that he is soft on certain areas. His heart is more like a Democrat than a person that’s actually looking at the Constitution. The Constitution requires state rights. And the problem with the refugee act and bringing in more refugees is that we don’t have the resources to absorb more people.
And what they get when they come here is probably like eight months of support and after that, they’re pretty much on their own or they are reliant on churches and people’s generosity to help them at that point. I think that if he really cared about immigrants then you would have to control the flow better. And I also believe that we need to be pressing our legislators for immigration reform. And immigration reform that actually looks at the needs of American citizens rather than the needs of globalists.
Leahy: Yeah, and I think it’s totally up to the state government, the state legislators, and the governor’s to push back because the Federal Courts have really in this particular instance interpreted the Constitution in the law incorrectly. This panel of Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals liberal judges said the following. “The federal government addressed concerns raised by states or localities subject to the understanding that the states and localities could not reject resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions.”
That’s flat-out wrong. That’s not what the law says and yet that’s how these liberal judges want to interpret it. This is why I think the only course of action and the only push back over the next two years Carol it seems to me is going to come from the Tennessee General Assembly, the governor if he’s got the gumption to do it, and then other similar state’s actions around the country. Your thoughts.
Swain: If Bill Lee wants to be re-elected to a second term I think he needs to get in sync with Tennessee voters and with the general assembly. This is still a red state and we do have legitimate concerns about refugee resettlement. They need to be addressed.
Leahy: Good point. And the other thing that President Biden’s going to do by the way legal but not legitimate, that’s my description of President Biden. He’s removed all of the vettings of these of the refugees’ number one. Number two, he’s removed the restriction on hotbeds of terrorism. So here in Tennessee we are likely to see a tenfold increase in refugees in this next calendar year. And many of them are going to come from places like Somalia which have been traditionally hotbeds of terrorism. Not a good sign.
And we hope that Governor Lee will show some spine here and exercise leadership. We’ll see how that turns out. Carol, I wanted to comment a little bit about your schedule and what you’re up to. First I saw you on Laura Ingraham the other night and you were talking about some craziness in Oregon and what they’re doing in the public schools there. You have spent some time on and have set up a very nice studio in your house, haven’t you?
Swain: I have. And yesterday I was on Carrie Sheffield’s Just the News. I was on Dan Ball last night with One America News. And I have an inquiry from the Jesse Waters show about a possible interview on Friday to discuss Bill Gates. They would tape it on Friday.
Leahy: I look at the quality of that Skype connection and on Laura’s show the other night. It was very very good. And you are Skype connected with us right now, right?
Swain: I am. And it allows me to use my cell phone and I can communicate with you otherwise, I would be conducting the interview from the cell phone and it would be very difficult for us to text back and forth. So I like this Skype line and my home office. And I did, I spent months trying to get the right backdrop. I rejected and got rid of Comcast because it wasn’t reliable and now I’m using AT&T.
Leahy: So AT&T is your vendor and that connection is working well. The quality is quite good I must say. Now Carol, every Thursday, when you are on people, are dying to hear what you are up to. You’ve been very busy. Very very busy. Tell us what’s on your agenda for the rest of this week.
Swain: Well because of the weather I was not able to film for Thursday’s Conversations with Dr. Carol Swain. But I’m going to do a Skype interview this morning with Eric Metaxas. And also with a young woman at Baylor University that was too conservative for the university. And so I’m actually going to try to film my television show remotely with the people at Stage Post helping me. Some way they are going to log in and we’ll see if it works seamlessly. They will be putting in the bumpers as well as the other things.
Leahy: That’s good. We got a minute left here Carol.
Swain: So I’m very active with the media. I am working harder from home than I have been before. And I’m still encouraging people to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all of those places. And my handle is CarolMSwain.
Leahy: Well, when you talk to Eric Metaxas, tell him we said hello and also thank him for his book A Republic If You Can Keep It because we use some of the information from a guy named Oz Guinness in our Guide to the Constitution and Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students. Carol, Swain thanks for joining us. I hope you have a great day.
Swain: Thank you.
Listen to the full third hour here:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
