The Thomas More Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Tennessee General Assembly and the State of Tennessee in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on Monday challenging the federal refugee resettlement program for violating the state’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Taxpayers in the state of Tennessee paid to fly an interpreter fluent in an obscure language spoken in Myanmar (Burma) from North Carolina to Nashville to assist in the defense of a refugee from that country charged with four counts of child abuse.
All told, in the six years between 2010 and 2015, seven cases of MDR TB were diagnosed in the state of Tennessee, including the three Nashville cases. The Tennessee Department of Health confirms that two of these seven cases of MDR TB were refugees, four were foreign-born but not refugees, and one was U.S.-born.
On Tuesday Tennessee Attorney General Herb Slatery gave the Tennessee General Assembly a green light to sue the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds over its resettlement of refugees in the Volunteer State.
“These statistics underscore the urgency [of the public health risk posed by the refugee resettlement program in Tennessee],” Norris tells Breitbart News.
The refugee health data provided to Breitbart News by TOR about tuberculosis makes Tennessee the state with the second highest rate of LTBI among recently resettled refugees in the nine states that have either publicly reported the information, or provided it upon request to Breitbart News.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee—Both the Tennessee Department of Health and the VOLAG (voluntary agency) that administers the refugee resettlement program in the Volunteer State, Catholic Charities of Tennessee’s Tennessee Office for Refugees, are failing to make public critical information on refugee tuberculosis (TB) health care.
State Senator Mark Norris (R-Collierville) is sharply rebuking Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam for mischaracterizing the Tennessee General Assembly’s Tenth Amendment lawsuit against the federal government for its operation of the refugee resettlement program to the state’s Attorney General, Herbert Slatery.
The first reported case of a person with measles in the recent Memphis outbreak, which now numbers seven confirmed cases, was at a local mosque on April 15, according to the Shelby County Health Department.
Several Tennessee state legislators appear ready to rebel against the implementation of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program after hearing testimony from Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons that the Obama administration has failed to comply with the Refugee Act of 1980’s statutory requirement to consult with the state prior to the placement of refugees there.
