Tennessee’s Tenth Amendment case against federal
Refugee Admissions Program is moving ahead! by Ann
Corcoran on October 25, 2016
The Tennessee General Assembly has selected
the Thomas More Law Center to represent the state in its lawsuit against the
federal government over the resettlement of refugees in the Volunteer State.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan based nonprofit public
interest law firm made the announcement in a press statement released on
Tuesday.
The Thomas More
Law Center will represent the state free of charge in the “constitutional
challenge to the federal government’s refugee resettlement program as a
violation of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Tennessee is one
of twelve states that have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement
program in which it is operated by the federal government under the
statutorily-questionable Wilson Fish alternative program. Texas is the
thirteenth state to withdrawn from the federal program, effective in January.
Two additional states, Vermont and Massachusetts, allow the federal government
to resettle refugees within their boundaries under the Wilson Fish alternative
program, but have not withdrawn from the federal program. Continue
reading here.
This lawsuit is
available for only those so-called Wilson Fish states (feds and a non-profit
contractor call the shots on resettlement bypassing the state legislature) that
have withdrawn from the federal program. As mentioned above, Texas is the
most recent one to do so. Within the last year Kansas
and New Jersey have withdrawn as well, so they don’t yet appear on this
outdated ORR list.
So what should you do—tell your state to
withdraw and then have the governor sign up as a plaintiff with the Thomas More
Law Center! But, don’t
forget to pressure your member of Congress to DEFUND the program in the lame
duck session of Congress next month. This lawsuit is going to take a
little while to work its way through the system and in the meantime (if Trump
isn’t elected) we could have another quarter of a million refugees spread out
across 49 states (assuming Wyoming continues to hold out!) by the time a legal
judgement and the appeals process has been exhausted.
Here are the
Wilson Fish states. By the way, there is one county on
the list (San Diego County) so this could mean a
county could withdraw and join the lawsuit. I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t
see why that wouldn’t work!
Alabama
Alaska
Colorado
Idaho
Kentucky
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Nevada
North Dakota
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
Alaska
Colorado
Idaho
Kentucky
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Nevada
North Dakota
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
And then New
Jersey, Kansas and Texas have joined the list. Come on Governors Abbott (TX),
Brownback (KS) and Christie (NJ) show some fight!
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