by Kim Jarrett
The Tennessee General Assembly has been “unequivocally clear ” that illegal immigration is a high priority for them, but there’s only so much a state can do, the state’s attorney general said.
Jonathan Skrmetti told The Center Square in a telephone interview when he goes out and talks to people across Tennessee, he can’t think of a time when he hasn’t gotten questions about the subject.
“We’ve filed a number of lawsuits in conjunction with other states, but there’s a lot of instances where the states sue the federal government and lost because it is ultimately the federal government’s responsibility to handle our immigration laws,” Skrmetti said.
Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma are appealing challenges to their laws that would make illegal immigration a state crime. Federal courts struck down those cases, but they are being appealed.
Skermieti won a lawsuit filed through the Freedom of Information Act and received more than 384 pages of documents about a 2022 plan to send illegal immigrants to Nashville.
The documents show that the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office planned a December 2022 meeting with state and local officials and possibly community groups. No specific number of immigrants was listed, but among the recommendations were some with criminal records. The plan was thwarted after pushback from Gov. Bill Lee and U.S. senators, according to Skrmetti.
“There are limits on capacity. And when you have a lot of people moving to any one place, even when they are people of means, the process of assimilating them, the process of making sure the services are sufficient for them, can be challenging,” Skrmetti said. “When you have a bunch of people coming in with no means, who are being brought in, it’s an even bigger challenge.”
Skrmetti is being criticized for saying immigration officials released murderers and rapists into society. But you “can’t sugarcoat that,” he said.
“We have immigration laws that have allowed a lot of people to come here and integrate to society and become very successful, enjoy the freedoms we have, pass those blessings on to their children and their grandchildren, and that’s a beautiful thing, it’s an important part of our country,” Skrmetti said. “Any one person can come in and integrate just fine. When you have 10 million come in over a couple of years, that’s a very different situation.
“And basic services like hospitals, like law enforcement, like schools, they’re put under a tremendous strain and no one agreed to that. We are allowed to decide who comes into the country and we can debate what the policy should be, but at the end of the day it’s a policy that we as the American people get to choose.”
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Kim Jarrett’s career spans over 30 years with stops in radio, print and television. She has won awards from both the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Association of Broadcasters. Jarrett is an associate editor for The Center Square.
Photo “Jonathan Skrmetti” by Tennessee Attorney General.
