Saturday, 12 July 2025

Law Signed By Republican Governor Criminalizes Housing Illegal Immigrants For Rent

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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation making it a felony to provide shelter for illegal immigrants for financial benefit.

Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly passed Senate Bill 392 in April.

The law targets landlords and business owners who knowingly “harbor” undocumented immigrants in exchange for rent or services.

WBIR shared additional details on the law:

SB 0392/HB 0322 was introduced by Representative Chris Todd (R-Madison County) and Senator Brent Taylor (R-Memphis). The bill makes several changes to the state’s existing laws around human trafficking, creating the offense of “human smuggling” — a Class E felony that would be treated the same as other human trafficking offenses.

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People who hide and transport at least 10 adults, or five minors, who are in the country illegally for “commercial advantage or private financial gain” would commit “human smuggling.” The bill also said the offense applies to people who “encourage or induce” the same number of people to stay in Tennessee against federal law.

Omar Reyes, an Immigration Attorney in the state says the bill will face challenges in the courts. He raises concerns about who may be punished for these crimes, and how law enforcement would determine the legal status of somebody.

“It would be probably someone who has a construction site and has a boss, and he carries the workers every day to that place, that might mean carrying illegal people,” Reyes said. “It might also be if you have a family and they go out, they want to go to Gatlinburg and they hire a taxi or they hire a tour service, and it takes the whole family, 15 of them to go to Gatlinburg; is that driver committing the felony because he’s transporting people?”

The bill also allows the state’s attorney general to act against organizations, including nonprofits and businesses, that they believe violate human trafficking laws. The state could ask courts for restraining orders against them, permanent injunctions, or ask the court to revoke essential documents like certificates and licenses.

The legislation also creates a Class A misdemeanor for individuals who “harbor or hide” those in the country illegally, carrying a $1,000 fine for each offense.

The law already faces a class-action lawsuit from a coalition led by the Tennessee-based Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

A Nashville landlord and Mexican immigrant in the state joined the lawsuit.

Newsmax explained:

They alleged that the law is unconstitutionally vague, oversteps federal authority to regulate immigration, and could place churches, landlords, and immigrant communities in the state’s crosshairs.

“This law is not just harmful, it’s unconstitutional,” Elizabeth Cruikshank, senior counsel for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, which is a party to the lawsuit, said in a news release. “Immigration enforcement is a responsibility of the federal government, not something that states can pick up and weaponize however they choose.”

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The complaint also stated that the law infringes on the First Amendment freedom of the church’s members to express their faith by providing services to migrants.

“These kinds of state laws have the possibility to be really destabilizing to communities because they create an atmosphere of fear for people about the status of immigrants within their communities,” Bill Powell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Post.

Tennessee state Sen. Brent Taylor and Rep. Chris Todd, both Republicans who sponsored the bill — no Democrats voted for it — said it was aimed at stopping human trafficking, not prosecuting landlords or religious groups.


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