The Republican front-runners for Tennessee governor are parroting President Donald Trump’s call to “build the wall” and are depicting one another as sympathizers of people in the country illegally, turning the race into a fight over who’s toughest on immigration.
In a TV ad, U.S. Rep. Diane Black goes fishing and calls the federal government’s immigration approach a “catch and release” system that lets lawbreakers free.
Former state economic development chief Randy Boyd declares “illegal is illegal” in his TV spot.
With those hard stances, anything perceived as short of hardline on immigration has been fair game for attacks.
For Black, it’s a 2001 vote on immigrant driver’s licenses and a recent vote on the omnibus budget bill that included border security money.
For Boyd, it’s a donation to an immigrant group’s entrepreneurial kitchen program and a position on an education board that advocated some benefits to immigrants here illegally.
Not ‘in-state’ students
Like Black and Boyd, the other two leading Republicans, businessman Bill Lee and state House Speaker Beth Harwell, support recently passed legislation against sanctuary cities that mandates local police comply with federal immigration detainers.
They all oppose giving in-state public higher education tuition to students whose parents brought or kept them in the country illegally.
Each candidate would be a change of pace from Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, who supported the in-state tuition bill twice, posing for photos with immigrant students. He let the sanctuary cities bill become law without signing it, calling it “a solution looking for a problem.”
The term-limited, popular governor said he hopes the conversation in the race will change.
“Ninety-nine percent of the issues that come up around immigration are controlled by the federal government. That was a little bit of the point with the sanctuary cities bill,” Haslam said. “I hope the conversation goes to things that the governor’s job is really about.”
The Democratic candidates, ex-Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and state House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, oppose the sanctuary city bill and support in-state tuition.
Promise and politics
Black’s team has blasted Boyd for sitting on the College Promise Campaign board, a national initiative headed by former Vice President Joe Biden’s wife Jill to advocate for two years of free community college. Then-President Barack Obama announced the board in September 2015. It has liberal and conservative members.
Boyd, while Haslam’s economic development chief, helped establish Tennessee’s landmark free community college program.
The College Promise Campaign’s website says, “Some programs are explicitly limited to U.S. citizens, while others include residents of the locality or state, including undocumented students.”
It’s yet to be seen whether Trump-era fervor over illegal immigration will drive Tennessee Republican voters’ decision in the August primary.
A Vanderbilt University poll showed that among Republicans, only 10 percent considered immigration their first priority for state government, and 9 percent called it their second priority.
The poll also found half of Republicans favor the in-state tuition idea.
