He's relentless
Bruce Griffey ran for office on an extreme, anti-immigrant platform - promising to bring Trumpism to the state capitol. He has said he is trying to make Tennessee the last place that undocumented immigrants would choose to call home. He's introduced a slate of bills that would make life impossible for immigrant families in Tennessee. And three of these bills are up for a vote this week.
But he didn't know the kind of fierce opposition he'd face from Tennessee's immigrant rights movement.
We are building powerful coalitions of stakeholders and unlikely allies to oppose his efforts; we are supporting immigrant leaders in advocating for their families and their futures; and we are mobilizing thousands of voters across Tennessee to urge their representatives to reject these extreme bills.
Last week more than 800 of you sent a message to members of the business sub-committee and urged them to vote against HB0614, the bill that would ban undocumented people from renting homes in Tennessee. That same bill is going for a vote tomorrow in the Commerce Committee. This month, more than 300 of our members have shown up to speak to lawmakers and attend committee meetings to show their opposition to Representative's Griffey's bills, and they will be back again this week.
We've already defeated Rep. Griffey's bill to tax hardworking Tennesseans in order to build the border wall (HB0562), and he's already pulled two other bills from the calendar and off of committee consideration (including a bill to deny birth certificates to children with undocumented parents (HB0662) and another bill to turn our local courts into ICE courts (HB1238). But he could still bring them back, so they remain a threat against our communities.
But this week, three of his bills are up for a vote in committee. We'll be at the capitol and working in districts across the state to mount a powerful opposition to these bills. But we need your help.
Right now, we need you to weigh in with members of the House Constitutional Protections and Sentencing sub-committee and tell them to oppose HJR47, Representative Griffey's extreme resolution in support of ending birthright citizenship
Follow TIRRC and TIRRC Votes on social media to keep up with our work at the legislature this week.
Together, we can reject hate and defeat all of these dangerous bills.