Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, facing questions over his handling of illegal immigration, thrust an advisory council of local liberal activists into a heated clash with federal and state officials. The move is drawing scrutiny from a Republican-controlled Congress, the Trump Justice Department, and Border Czar Tom Homan over immigration enforcement policies.
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Recent statements from Nashville officials seem to run perilously close to violating state law. From Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s carefully crafted statements — to Police Chief John Drake’s declaration that the Metro Nashville officers “do NOT work with ICE” — to an admission from State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) that she physically worked to “distract and delay” the immigration enforcement activities of ICE; these actions, statements and policies have raised eyebrows AND questions.
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President Trump’s Immigration Czar Tom Homan has repeatedly warned against interfering with ICE attempts to arrest those in this country illegally. That is exactly what State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) appeared to be doing over the weekend as she, by her own admission on Instagram, worked to “delay and distract” ICE officers from carrying out illegal immigration enforcement. “We’re stalling them,” she said while also referring to ICE officers as “…little vampires who only come out at night.” The bizarre video in which Representative Behn is seen repeatedly toying with her hair and smoothing her eyebrows, ended with Behn receiving a THP ticket for running a red light.
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Battle lines are being drawn over immigration enforcement in Nashville. It’s shaping up as a fight once again pitting liberals who control the island of blue that is Davidson County versus the sea of red that is Tennessee.
In one corner, Nashville’s liberal Mayor, Freddie O’Connell and members of the democrat-majority City Council expressing outrage that federal immigration laws were being enforced in their city. In the other corner, the Trump Department of Homeland Security, Republican Governor Bill Lee and key players in the republican supermajority General Assembly who were clearly peeved at the tone and tenor of the Mayor’s hastily called Monday press conference.
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The Biden administration inflated its number of reported deportations by conflating the number of illegal immigrants stopped by border agents before they could get inside the United States. Biden’s figures may very well hide the success of Trump’s immigration enforcement.
Trump started his second term notching some early wins on securing the southern border and stemming border crossings to record lows, but at first blush, the rate of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removals appeared to lag behind the Biden administration’s capture rate in its final full year, according to data released by ICE under both administrations.
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Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) described this legislative session of the Tennessee General Assembly as “very productive” in terms of legislation passed by lawmakers on key statewide topics, including immigration and education.
On January 27, the General Assembly convened for a special session called by Governor Bill Lee to pass the Education Freedom Act, a disaster relief package, and other measures related to immigration.
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The University of Tennessee, Knoxville reportedly confirmed in an internal letter last week to members of its community that two students facing possible deportation under President Donald Trump have criminal backgrounds, as claimed by the Trump administration when it changed the immigration status of three students and one university staff member.
UT Chancellor Donda Plowman stated in a purported letter to students and community members on Friday that after the Trump administration changed the immigration status of three students and one staff member, the university was able to locate two of the students’ criminal histories.
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Attendees at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday cheered Vice President JD Vance’s onstage interview.
One of Vance’s discussion topics in the interview was his casual form of communication, notably his jabs against opponents and his jokes on X.
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In his first international address since taking office, President Donald Trump spoke on Thursday to an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, emphasizing a “revolution of common sense” and outlining a series of America-First policy initiatives aimed at reversing what he described as the economic and social damages of the previous administration.
Trump began his speech – delivered stateside via video teleconference – by reflecting on his recent inauguration, describing the election as a “massive mandate” with victories in all seven swing states, leading to what he called the “golden age of America.”
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Tennessee U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) voted with the majority to pass the Laken Riley Act on Monday evening.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Tennessee Star, and Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Star, provided an inside look of an extensive list of executive orders President Donald Trump will sign on his first day in office after having been briefed by incoming White House officials Monday morning.
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President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 – and again in 2024 – on a mandate from the people to put an end to the illegal immigrant crisis and implement citizens-first immigration reform.
The mandate was clear: America is a nation of laws, and illegal immigration violates our laws and presents an array of criminal and economic issues that cannot be ignored.
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Data publicly tracked online reveals the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) hired more than 60 foreign nationals for its Arizona factories using the H-1B visa program. The company was given billions under President Joe Biden through the CHIPS Act, including $6.6 billion in November.
According to the h1bdata.info website, data released by the U.S. Department of Labor reveals TSMC’s Arizona corporation hired at least 58 foreign employees through the H-1B visa program implemented by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order “to protect Texans from the coordinated harassment and coercion by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
The order directs the Texas Department of Public Safety to target and arrest anyone implementing CCP influence operations like “Operation Fox Hunt,” an initiative of the PRC to forcibly return people to China it’s identified as so-called dissidents living in the U.S.
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U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are introducing a bill this week that would prevent migrants tied to the terrorist group Hamas from entering the U.S. and receiving immigration benefits.
Blackburn and Rosen’s ‘No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act’ would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny immigration benefits to aliens who “carried out, participated in, planned, financed, supported, or otherwise facilitated” the recent attacks against Israel beginning on October 7, 2023.
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The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement vowing to block the incoming Trump Administration on as many policies as possible, including abortion, the LGBT agenda, and immigration.
As Fox News reports, ACLU’s executive director Anthony Romero published an open letter on the organization’s website, admitting that “we know that a second Trump administration will be even more aggressive and effective than it was before.”
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The common refrain among supporters of the Democratic Party’s open borders policy is that immigration helps the economy. A very recent example of this was published in MSNBC Daily last month, where the author, David Bier of the Cato Institute, claims that “The Congressional Budget Office finds that the surge will boost the economy by $7 trillion and reduce the federal debt by nearly $1 trillion by 2034.” That’s actually an unimpressive statistic since the cumulative GDP of the United States over the next decade will easily exceed $300 trillion, but Bier is probably not wrong in his assertion that immigration increases GDP.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07), who is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, delivered opening remarks Wednesday during the committee’s hearing to examine how “Biden-Harris’ open borders policies have undermined our safety and security.”
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Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dave McCormick on Friday blamed Democratic leaders, including the Biden-Harris administration and his political opponent, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), after one Pennsylvania town saw a 2,000 percent increase in migrants under the current administration.
The Republican’s campaign said McCormick released the statement as “reports reveal the small Pennsylvania town of Charleroi is suffering from a [2,000 percent] increase in migrants.”
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Affordable housing is among Arizonans’ top priorities this election season according to a recent poll by Noble Predictive Insights. It is a topic that both parties claim to address.
The poll was conducted between Aug. 12-16, surveying 1,003 registered voters in Arizona and yielding a 3.09% margin of error.
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner this week demanding answers after a recent report revealed that ICE has lost track of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children over the last five years.
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Immigration policy think tank the Center for Immigration Studies released its updated map of American sanctuary locations on Thursday, revealing a surge in Virginia localities adopting sanctuary status.
The center added 36 Virginia localities to its map for a total of 84.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti was one of the state attorneys general who joined a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new program process to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who are the spouse or stepchild of a U.S. citizen to “parole in place.”
The 56-page complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Texas U.S. District Court on Friday, challenges DHS’ “Keeping Families Together” program, which began accepting applications on Monday.
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Congressman Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03), who was once known for his staunch progressive positions, has notably shifted toward a more centrist approach as he faces Republican Kari Lake in a competitive bid for the U.S. Senate. Gallego, who built his political career championing far-left causes, is recalibrating his platform to appeal to a broader spectrum of Arizona voters. This strategic pivot comes as Republicans increase their voter registration efforts. Gallego aims to counter Lake’s strong conservative base by courting moderate and independent voters in this must-win key battleground state. According to voter data, Republicans hold a significant lead over registered Democrats, with July being a particularly good month.
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Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, said the conversation between billionaire and owner of X Corp. Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump on the social media platform X was a “game changer in political dialogue and communication.”
On Monday evening, Trump and Musk held a two-hour conversation via X Space, which has since been viewed over a billion times.
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Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration is attempting to direct attention away from record-high illegal land border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border by offering a multitude of other avenues to migrants who intend to enter the country.
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Vice President Kamala Harris has held very liberal – some would even say radical – positions on various policies over the years, and despite flip-flopping on occasion as political winds changed, her history indicates how far to the left her possible administration could swing.
From guns to energy, Harris has held liberal positions over the course of her political career. Some of her stated positions from her dismal 2020 presidential run have softened recently, largely occurring after she joined President Biden’s ticket in 2020.
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Vice presidential nominee and Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) will travel to Arizona on Thursday to tour the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump campaign announced.
Vance will visit the border in Cochise County, which is part of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Tucson Sector.
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The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted prior to the weekend assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, found that likely voters said inflation/price increases (45%), illegal immigration (36%) and the economy/jobs (28%) were the issues that matter most to them heading into the November election.
The poll was conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights from July 8-11 and surveyed nearly 2,300 likely voters, including 1,006 Republicans, 1,117 Democrats, and 172 true (non-leaning) independents. It has a margin of error of 2.1%. The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll is one of only six national tracking polls in the United States.
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Steve Cortes, former senior spokesman and strategist for the 2016 and 2020 Trump campaigns and current head of the League of American Workers, said Republicans should focus on three specific key points leading up to the November 5 presidential election if President Joe Biden remains the Democratic Party’s nominee and refuses to be pushed from his post as commander in chief.
While some Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and not run for reelection, it appears the president is adamant about staying in the race to serve another four years.
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A Republican state senate candidate is at odds with former President Donald Trump, who is running for reelection, on several key points.
Chris Spencer is running for state senate in District 18, encompassing Sumner and Trousdale Counties. He is challenging Speaker Pro Tempore Senator Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin).
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Montana has one of the longest shares of the U.S. border with Canada of any state. However, it’s the other border – nearly 1,000 miles away – that is becoming a flashpoint in the state’s ongoing U.S. Senate race.
Montana’s U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is up for re-election this year, with Tester running against Republican nominee Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and aerial firefighter. Sheehy has consistently attacked Tester on immigration and border security – seeking to paint him as an enabler of President Joe Biden’s record on illegal immigration from Mexico – forcing Tester to defend his record.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) was one of four members of the U.S. House of Representatives to receive a perfect score on NumberUSA’s Immigration Congressional Grade Card.
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Less than half of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s handling on immigration, a new survey found.
Only 29% of Americans said they approve of the president’s handling of immigration, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday. Conversely, more than 60% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the issue, and among those, 47% said they strongly disapproved.
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U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, commemorated the U.S. Border Patrol’s 100th anniversary on Tuesday by introducing a resolution in honor of the agency.
Congress established The Border Patrol under former President Calvin Coolidge on May 28, 1924.
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The Biden administration is currently waging a legal campaign against Republican-led states, arguing their laws that effectively restrict illegal immigration are unconstitutional.
The Department of Justice has so far filed lawsuits against three different states for enacting laws that largely empower police to enforce immigration rules. However, these state leaders, in the backdrop of an unprecedented border crisis, say they have no choice but to take up the issue themselves because the Biden administration won’t — and other Republican states may soon follow suit.
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Democrat members of the U.S. Senate unanimously moved to block Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) bill that would require a DNA test to determine the relationship between illegal immigrants and any accompanying children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Blackburn introduced the End Child Trafficking Now Act last year after the Biden administration ended all DNA familial testing at the border.
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The current radical and often violent protests on mostly blue-state, supposedly elite campuses have exposed in toxic fashion what the left has become. And yet, in a paradoxical fashion, the campus insanity has offered the nation some moral clarity.
What’s surprising is not that the demonstrators are violent and nihilist, but that they are, on the one hand, so openly and crudely anti-Semitic, racist, and anti-American, and yet on the other hand, so passive-aggressive, narcissistic, and weepy.
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The Tennessee Legislature passed a pair of bills intended to fight illegal immigration in the state.
The bill will require the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference to collect and compile the data on the costs related to illegal immigrants in the state who are charged or convicted of a criminal offense. The report will be sent to the governor and both the House and Senate speaker.
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State Senator Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin) reflected on his work in the Tennessee General Assembly during this year’s recent-adjourned legislative session, specifically when it comes to passing legislation protecting children and addressing the effects of illegal immigration at the state level.
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Nearly 15 million people living in or entering the country illegally are on an FBI list prohibiting purchase of firearms.
However, the National Instant Criminal Background Check system isn’t required to let immigration authorities know if one of those 14.8 million is an applicant and in America. Legislation is proposed to change it.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, was among those who delivered two articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
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Shelby County resident Dr. George Flinn, a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in West Tennessee’s 8th District, said he is running because incumbent U.S. Representative David Kustoff (R-TN-08) needs to be “challenged.”
Flinn, who has run as a Republican and Independent candidate in U.S. Senate and primary races for Tennessee’s 8th and 9th Congressional districts, said he believes Kustoff “should not go unchallenged” considering the incumbent’s recent voting record on bills, particularly spending packages.
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Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to table the impeachment articles against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas next week after senators are sworn in as jurors.
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At the nexus of most of America’s current crises, the diversity/equity/inclusion dogma can be found. The southern border has been destroyed because the Democratic Party wanted the poor of the southern hemisphere to be counted in the census, to vote if possible in poorly audited mail-in elections, and to build upon constituencies that demand government help. Opposition to such cynicism and the de facto destruction of enforcement of U.S. immigration law is written off as “racism,” “nativism,” and “xenophobia.”
The military is short more than 40,000 soldiers. The Pentagon may fault youth gangs, drug use, or a tight labor market. But the real shortfall is mostly due inordinately to reluctant white males who have been smeared by some of the military elite as suspected “white supremacists,” despite dying at twice their demographics in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they are now passing on joining up despite their families’ often multigenerational combat service.
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Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) and Indiana U.S. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN-03) have introduced a bill that would prohibit universities that receive federal funding from hiring illegal aliens.
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State Representative Justin Jones (D-Nashville) admitted on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday that he walked “across the border” with an illegal alien named Javier after visiting a migrant caravan camp in Mexico last week.
Jones made the admission while speaking in opposition to a bill, HB 2124, on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday.
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Todd Bensman, senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the way the Biden administration handles the first boat of Haitian migrants en route to the Florida Keys amid the Caribbean country’s current state of emergency will determine whether or not another mass migration crisis will rock the U.S. in addition to the one unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 25 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to leaders in the U.S. Senate urging the immediate passage of the Laken Riley Act.
Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, was allegedly killed at the hands of an illegal Venezuelan immigrant while on a jog near campus.
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Tennessee U.S. Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) were among a group of Republican U.S. senators that introduced the Laken Riley Act on Wednesday.
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