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 U.S. (R) Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee congressman to the newsmakers line to outline his new bill that establishes illegal migrant children’s status that are coming into Tennessee and preferential treatment of refugees in Central American countries.
Leahy: On our newsmaker line our good friend, Congressman Mark Green from Tennessee. My congressman who does a great job, by the way. Good morning, Congressman Green.
Green: Hey sir. How are you? Good to be on your show.
Leahy: Well, we’re delighted to have you on. And we want to have you in studio someday soon. You’re introducing a new bill apparently or have to address the issue of migrant children being brought to Tennessee. Tell us about that.
Green: Yes. We found out that with this incredible border crisis, the open door and open border policy that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have created, it’s resulted in a lot of children showing up at our doorsteps.
And what’s happened with the federal government and its clandestine methodologies decided they just fly these folks to Tennessee without letting Tennessee know. In fact, they asked Governor Lee and Governor Lee said no but they sent them anyway in the dead of the night.
The problem is the incentives that have been created, we have to shut the incentives down. What we’re basically saying is that the federal government has to ask the governor for permission.
The governor has to give permission. But one of the things we’re doing to make sure that the children are still taking care of we’re moving them from the control of HHS and the refugee program to Homeland Security so that it’s still an immigration issue and not some kind of refugee issue.
Making those guys be classified as migrants keeps the legal status in a way that the federal government can’t force them on Tennessee. The other issue is with this bill is we’re addressing the preferential treatment to certain countries in Central America that get automatic refugee status.
And so we’re trying to fix that as well. And then, of course, to take care of the children. We leading their ability to be housed with HHS because DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, the actual law enforcement folks don’t have the resources to house these children.
So if we leave that portion in law and then change their status, we can address the immigration issue and still take care of the children. And so that’s kind of what the bill does.
Leahy: So it’s interesting you mentioned something that was kind of a mystery to me. I never understood exactly why the Office of Refugee Resettlement was involved in moving these kids here.
Were they trying to just flaunt the law or using a loophole in the law by bringing them in under the Office of Refugee Resettlement? The issue is in the weeds but it struck me as interesting.
And I was wondering, well, how could they do that because these are illegal aliens because they are not coming in through the refugee program.
Green: So that doesn’t make sense in the law. And it’s very interesting. We approached multiple people, former immigration judges. We approached the folks here in D.C. who write the bills for us.
They’re our lawyers on our side that are Republicans and think the way we think. And no one seems to be able to agree on the status of these children and whether they could technically be refugees or not. And so we want to clarify that ambiguity by making sure that the unaccompanied children are, in fact, unaccompanied migrants.
And they can’t, therefore, be treated as a refugee because once they’re treated as a refugee, the state either has to get out of the refugee program completely, which governor chose not to do, or we don’t have to say at that point.
Leahy: Exactly. By the way, this was a very good catch on your part. I’m delighted you’ve done it because you’re kind of solving a bit of this mystery because there is an act called The Refugee Act of 1980 that governs refugees.
Green: That’s exactly correct. With Tennessee in the program, we can’t basically block refugees being resettled in Tennessee as long as the state is in the program because of the court rulings and the way the court rulings found on those original refugee laws.
So that’s why these children, I’m trying to classify them as unaccompanied migrants. And therefore, when they get into that status, it’s a law enforcement and a migration issue and not a refugee issue.
Which is essentially what they truthfully are. So that’s the dilemma we’re fixing. The bill, we’ve had it vetted by tons of different people. And I will tell you, Michael, the people in Tennessee who are smart on this came to us.
We shared the bill. They are the ones who provided the idea on this. This is constituents informing their congressman and educating me on some of the nuances of this that resulted in a much better bill.
Leahy: Well, what’s going to happen with this bill when you introduce it?
Green: What we’ve got to do is find four or five Democrats who are willing to buck Pelosi, which in this day and age is hard to find. It makes it hard for us to get anything done.
Leahy: Do we need to give you Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s phone number? Do you think she’ll be one of the four or five? That’s a joke. (Laughs)
Green: I don’t want that on my phone.
Leahy: (Laughs) That’s a bad joke on my part.
Green: (Chuckles) She’s the wrong one to go to. But there are a couple out there that are trying to save their seat and what’s going to happen in the next cycle.
Leahy: Will it be a Democratic member of Congress from a border state?
Green: There are a couple, actually, that are pushing for Kamala Harris to come down there. So we might be able to get those guys to say, hey, yeah, Let’s do it.
Leahy: But it could also be somebody from a state like, I don’t know Tennessee. Do you think Jim Cooper is going to jump in and say, oh yeah, we don’t want these illegal aliens shipped in here in the dark of night? Or Steve Cohen, you’re good friends?
Green: It’s hard to read where Jim is going to be on this one because of just the dynamics of what’s happening to his district. It’ll be a little bit hard to predict where Jim will be. We could sit down and talk with him about it. I would have to do that.
Leahy: I would like to be a fly on the wall when you have that conversation with Jim Cooper.
Green: Yeah, we’ve had several. (Laughter)
Listen to the full second hour here:
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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.
Live from Music Row Monday 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 TN. (R) State Representative Jerry Sexton in studio to weigh in on Biden border policy and immigration failures and the Tennessee General Assembly’s role in K12 public education curriculum.
(Arizona Congressman (R) Andy Biggs clip plays)
Leahy: That’s Congressman Andy Biggs from Arizona talking about the Biden mal-administration’s failure to enforce our immigration laws. What’s happening at the border is illegal aliens are crossing in record numbers. They’re not being tested for COVID. They’re not being detained. They are being put on buses and planes and sent all around the country, including to places like Tennessee it appears.
In studio with us State Representative Jerry Sexton. Jerry, when you hear Congressman Biggs describe the reality on the border of that, you look here at Tennessee apparently, some of these illegal aliens, many of them not tested for COVID. Many of them carrying COVID are headed to Tennessee. What’s your response to that, Jerry?
Sexton: Well, it’s obvious we have certain values and certain laws and those laws are being skirted with immigration. We are a country of immigrants, and it’s called the melting pot. The problem is we’re not melting anymore. We’re trying to change the values of this country.
Leahy: Balkanizing the country.
Sexton: Yes, that’s exactly right. And when you’ve got immigrants, we could make them a way for people to come legally. But what they’re doing is they’re getting these people to beholden to them as if they’re giving them something. And unfortunately, it’s happening in Tennessee. And we’re not making our politicians pay for their votes and their policies.
It’s time that we, as Tennesseeans, decide whether we’re going to continue to put up with these types of policies, or do we know exactly what the voting record is of our state Senator, of our governor, of any politician? Do we know what their voting record is? We better stop listening to the rhetoric and see what actually they’re doing now.
Leahy: I have not seen any confirmed reports that these illegal aliens have surged across the border and have been placed in Tennessee. I have seen many confirmed reports that illegal aliens at the border are not being detained and are being sent around the country. It would stand a reason that there are 50 States and they’re probably being sent to Tennessee is one of those States.
There was an unconfirmed report down in Chattanooga. I don’t know if you saw that which said that said, apparently an organization called the Baptiste Group, there was a report, unconfirmed, was housing illegal aliens who had just crossed the border. And then there was, I think, a local Chattanooga message from their school board saying, just a reminder that by law, we are required to educate everybody that comes here.
And there’s a Supreme Court ruling on this that illegal alien children must be educated in K12 public schools. And so I don’t know. There have been no confirmed reports, but it would very much surprise me if there aren’t right now today in Tennessee, illegal aliens who have crossed the border illegally since the inauguration of Joe Biden, who are sitting here right now, many of them poised to go to public schools.
Sexton: Let me ask you something. What if every immigrant that came to America said that they had to listen to your program? And I’m in the furniture manufacturing business and these same people had to buy my product? Now, that would be a pretty good boom for us, would it not?
Leahy: Oh, yeah.
Sexton: So our education system, they get so much money per student. So what we’re doing is we’re filling up the classrooms with money because every head represents so much money for those schools. And it’s time that we tear apart these organizations that are funneling all this money and everything else. We should be teaching our people. We should be giving them an education.
Leahy: You mean on things like the Constitution of America? (Laughs)
Sexton: Oh, my gosh. Isn’t it amazing how we don’t know the Constitution and we don’t teach those things?
Leahy: Well, funny, you bring that up. Have you seen in our book Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students? I think maybe this is the first time I’ve shared that with you.
Sexton: I think it is.
Leahy: And I’ll just talk to you a little bit about this. In October, it will be our fifth year of doing the National Constitution Bee here in Tennessee. And it is for students grades eight through 12. They get a copy of this book. And then we do a Constitution Bee like a Spelling Bee or Geography Bee. And we end up with three winners and the first place winner gets a $10,000. educational scholarship, second place, $5,000, and third place $2,500. It’s a lot of fun.
Sexton: Wow.
Leahy: I will tell you this, though, and we make this book available as a supplementary text to K12 public schools in Tennessee. Really, only one school system in the state has even expressed any interest in it. We’ve got one school system using it as a supplementary text in one course. But most of the other K12 public schools have no interest in learning about this particular supplementary text on the Constitution. Nor do they have much interest in sending their kids to have this opportunity for educational scholarships. That’s our experience with the K12 public schools in Tennessee.
Sexton: What they are teaching them is completely different from the values of America. I was in a public school and I attend some schools occasionally and in one of the classrooms I took some pictures and I’ve tried to take videos of it, but there was on the board they were teaching about Christmas in Mexico, not Christmas in America.
Leahy: Christmas in Mexico.
Sexton: Christmas in Mexico.
Leahy: Because that’s what young kids in Tennessee need to learn about. Christmas in Mexico.
Sexton: I tell organizations all the time when they talk about these diversity and inclusion programs. First of all, say it should be done away with because I say it’s not real. If I want to bring my Bible and I want to come into your organization, am I welcome? Can I have Bible study? Can I have Sunday school? No, just on the face itself it’s not real. The first book that was approved by Congress, and I’m sorry, they don’t have the year 17 something but it was the Aitken Bible. It was the first Bible printed in America and approved by Congress.
Leahy: I think that was actually like 1784 during the Confederation Congress.
Sexton: I think so. Yes. And we are when I say we, the American Bible Society, is going to put Bibles in every school to be taught. From this historical standpoint, it has all of the documents. I’ve seen the Bible’s already being printed. And we’re excited that we can put those in schools because we do have a policy, a law, state law that says that you can have these.
But as you said, Michael, people are afraid. They’re afraid to stand up for what is our right in America. And until we start standing for those rights that we have and those values like the Second Amendment, like freedom of speech, like the right to keep and bare arms, until we start standing up for those, we’re going to continue to lose them. I, for one, will not bow to the left and their tactics.
Leahy: Yeah, that’s, I think, very important. But I want to follow up with this. Isn’t it the state legislature that plays a critical role in establishing the curriculum?
Sexton: Of course it is.
Leahy: That is taught in K12 public schools?
Sexton: Of course it is. Now let me give a high five to some of my colleagues in the Education Department. I know several of them that are fighting extremely hard to try to get these policies in our schools. Believe me, you’ve got a lot of Tennessee legislators that believe in the values that made this country great. They’re wanting to get those things taught in our school rooms. They’re fighting for it all the time.
We have to push back against these big unions. And I don’t want my Republican friends that don’t understand that every time we give in to these public schools and this leftist idea that they’re taking that money and trying to defeat Republicans and conservative values. Why do we continue to do that? I tell my friends all the time in the legislature that I am a rural representative and the school systems in my area are the largest employers.
And we cannot be afraid of them. We have to embrace them. I support our teachers. They have to teach what they’re mandated. But our parents also want to have a diversity of education. I support that. And I get elected every time because I support our parents, our teachers and the public school system is failing us as it is.
Listen to the full first hour here:
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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.
