With the continuing crush at the border of illegal aliens traveling with children to whom they may or may not be related and children being sent with smugglers to cross the border alone, liberals and open border groups have found a new reason to oppose President Trump’s “zero tolerance” for illegal immigration.
In Nashville, Wade Munday, Executive Director of the open borders organization TN Justice For Our Neighbors (TN-JFON) is looking for lawyers to volunteer and help illegal aliens come and stay in Tennessee.
In addition to his $61,000+ job at TN-JFON, Munday is the Democrat candidate running against incumbent conservative Republican Kerry Roberts for the state Senate District 25 seat.
TN-JFON provides free and low-cost legal services to legal immigrants like refugees as well as to asylum seekers and “unaccompanied alien children” (UAC) who have entered the country illegally. TN-JFON finds legal help by providing continuing legal education which is required for Tennessee lawyers, partnering with area law school legal clinics and using area media to carry their appeal.
Not surprisingly, TN-JFON supports Obama’s unconstitutional DACA administrative amnesty program and “safe arrivals” for “unaccompanied minors,” their term in lieu of the statutorily correct unaccompanied alien children.
Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), by law are defined as under age 18 who has no lawful immigration status in the U.S. and “with respect to whom, there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States, or no parent or legal guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical custody.”
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, several factors including the 1997 Flores Agreement which limits the detention of UACs to 20 days after which they are put on a path to being released to sponsors in the U.S., incentivize family units and UACs to make the dangerous trip to cross the Southern border:
- When these minors are released, they often fail to appear for court hearings or comply with removal orders.
- These legal loopholes lead to “catch and release” policies that act as a “pull factor” for increased future illegal immigration.
- This has incited smugglers to place children into the hands of adult strangers so they can pose as families and be released from immigration custody after crossing the border, creating another safety issue for these children.
Border surges from 2014 through April of this year have brought 5,147 unaccompanied illegal alien children to Tennessee.
These are the “clients” which TN-JFON says need lawyers to help them defend themselves against deportation.
One UAC previously featured by The Tennessee Star was sixteen year old Edwin Mejia, a UAC from Honduras who in 2013, was transported to Tennessee and released into the custody of his brother, an illegal alien living north of Nashville in Madison, Tennessee. The following year the two brothers moved to Nebraska where Edwin struck and killed 21-year old Sarah Root while he was drunk and street racing in his truck. Root had just graduated from college. Mejia posted bond and left town.
A 2018 report released by the Center for Immigration Studies links UACs with MS-13 gang members. Key findings of the report MS-13 Resurgence: Immigration Enforcement Needed to Take Back Our Streets, include:
- We found 506 MS-13 members arrested or charged with crimes that were reported in 22 states. The most cases were reported in California (92), Maryland (85), New York (80), and Virginia (63).
- 120 of the 506 MS-13 suspects in our case set arrived as UACs (Unaccompanied Alien Children), including 48 of the murder suspects.
- The location of these MS-13 crimes corresponds with locations of large numbers of UACs who were resettled by the federal government.
One MS-13 member identified in the CIS report is listed from Tennessee. Page 4 of the report includes a table listing MS-13 suspects by state and another table tallies the MS-13 suspects by crime:
The MS-13 members identified in the cases we found were accused of very serious crimes, including 207 murders. More than 100 were accused of conspiracy/racketeering, and dozens of others were charged with drug trafficking, sex trafficking, attempted murder, sexual assaults, and extortion.
TN-JFON is housed at Casa Azafran, the community center built and operated by Conexion Americas. This is the same building where resident partners such as the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, the American Muslim Advisory Council, and the Financial Empowerment Center are located. It is the same building where the “Randy & Jenny Boyd Culinary Incubator” was created with the Boyds’ quarter of a million dollar donation.
JFON was started in 1999, by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and describes itself as the “humanitarian relief and development arm” of the United Methodist Church. JFON claims at least 50 clinics spread across 17 states/regions. Since 1949, UMCOR has partnered with federal refugee resettlement contractor Church World Services.
