Two members of Tennessee’s Joint Study Committee on Refugee Issues said this week that, try as they might, state officials can’t do much to regulate or control how the federal government handles refugees within the state.
“The conservatives on the committee are frustrated over how little it appears we have control of this. We have no information,” said State Representative Chris Todd (R-Madison County).
“There is very little we can figure out to do because we have a federal government that is willing and purposefully violating not only the law but our Constitution day in and day out and hiding it. You cannot deal with someone like that not playing with the rules. We are not sure what we can do. We got advice from a lot of people. We never really did have anything like a magic bullet to say ‘Here is how you do this.’ And we are not the only state dealing with it, unfortunately. They seem to be placing these in red states all throughout the country.”
Committee members this week approved a report that recommends a variety of proposals related to Tennessee’s refugee issues.
State Senator Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville) told The Tennessee Star that no one at the state level can force the federal government to do anything.
“About 90 percent of the children that come into Tennessee get placed in homes outside the state where their parents are. They are brought there because the children don’t know where their parents are. Or a lot of times they don’t have that information,” Briggs said.
“They are just kept there until they can find out where the parents are. The federal government does all of that. We didn’t even know this was occurring because these are federal programs and not state programs.”
The report that committee members published this week could influence future legislation.
State Representative Bruce Griffey (R-Paris) said Friday that he did not help write the committee’s final recommendations — but he instead wrote a separate statement with recommendations of his own.
“We should immediately suspend the licenses of any entities that engage in transporting or placing any of these unaccompanied minors with homes or sponsors. The DCS [Tennessee Department of Children’s Services] confirmed at the hearing last Thursday that after these children leave the entity’s place and go to the sponsor home the DCS has no way of knowing who these family members or sponsors are. There is no follow up,” Griffey said.
“It was also clear from the committee that these placement entities only want to get paid for placing the child. That is just a recipe for disaster in my estimation. Before we allow anyone to make money off placing kids with homes or relatives or supposed relatives or whomever then we ought to make darn sure these kids aren’t becoming human trafficking victims, particularly with this class of people at the border.”
Griffey also said he wants to give the DCS immediate and complete authority and oversight over any placement of unaccompanied and illegal minor children.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star and The Georgia Star News. Follow Chris on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Chris Todd” by Tennessee General Assembly and photo “Richard Briggs” by Richard Briggs.
