The post Court Clears Tennessee Immigration Law Making Illegal Entry a State Crime appeared first on Breitbart.
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Tennessee has implemented a new law that criminalizes illegal migrants following a judge’s decision to dismiss a pro-migrant lawsuit.
U.S. District Court Judge Eli Richardson ruled that the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center lacked any standing to challenge the case and noted that the pro-migrant lawsuit was an activist filing and was “more attorney-driven rather than client-driven.”
Judge Richardson noted that the organizations that filed the lawsuit would not be subject to the provisions of the law, and they therefore have no part in challenging the law, the Times News reported.
The judge also denied the activist organizations’ request to launch a class action lawsuit.
Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee signed Bill 1704 into law in April as part of the state GOP’s “Immigration 2026” agenda.
The new law, sponsored by House GOP Majority Leader Rep. William Lambreth, will go into effect on July 1 and makes it a Class A misdemeanor under state criminal law for noncitizens to intentionally remain in Tennessee more than 90 days after being issued a final deportation order by federal authorities. It also makes it a crime for illegals to enter Tennessee after they had previously been deported from the U.S.A. Class A misdemeanors carry a sentence of up to one year in jail and a maximum $2,500 fine in Tennessee.
Tennessee now joins a growing number of states that have passed similar laws making entry by illegal aliens a state crime.
In 2024, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds made illegal immigration a state crime when she signed Senate File 2340 into law.
The year before that, Texas put a law in place making illegal immigration a state crime. The Lone Star State’s law was immediately challenged in court, but the U.S. Supreme court gave the state the go-ahead to enforce the law while further challenges continue.
Three other states, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, have also passed similar legislation.
Tennessee’s actions came on the tail of a state report that revealed a staggering amount of migrant crime had washed over the state in the Biden era.
The office of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference has released its annual state immigration report revealing that in 2025, illegal migrants committed 2,183 violent offenses, including 41 homicides, 145 sexual offenses, 11 child rapes, and more.
The 2025 Immigration Report released on January 30 is a required (TN Code § 4-1-425 2024) annual report from the state’s district attorneys general conference. The law directs them to “collect and analyze data from law enforcement agencies on the number of persons not lawfully present in the United States charged or convicted of a criminal offense in this state during the previous year.”
Republican State Rep. Dan Howell said he was shocked by the report and called the data “really, really bad.”
“These are the criminals liberals want to defend while trying to defund ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” he pointed out.
“Forty-one Tennesseans are dead at the hands of illegal immigrants and hundreds raped. This will not be tolerated in this great state and we will do more to keep you safe,” Howell added
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