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Advocates filed a federal lawsuit to block a new Tennessee law that criminalizes harboring or providing shelter to undocumented immigrants days before the law takes effect.
The Tennessee-based Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America filed the lawsuit Friday, joined by a Nashville landlord and a Mexican immigrant in the state. They allege 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.
The law creates a new criminal offense in Tennessee for human smuggling, which it classifies as concealing, harboring or shielding people determined by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be in the country illegally for financial gain. It is set to go into effect on July 1.
The church also argued that the law infringes on the First Amendment freedoms of its 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," said Bill Powell, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Tennessee state Sen. Brent Taylor (R) and state Rep. Chris Todd (R), who sponsored the bill, said it was aimed at stopping human trafficking, not prosecuting landlords or religious groups.
"I don't believe that the plaintiffs in this case are intentionally wanting to evade immigration officials … and they're not being paid for that purpose," Taylor told The Washington Post in an interview. "Then they're not going to be prosecuted under this statute."
"This new law builds on our efforts to prevent human trafficking and improve public safety by criminalizing the harboring of someone in the country illegally for financial gain," Todd said in a statement. "I'm confident this common-sense measure will easily withstand this unfounded and politically motivated lawsuit."
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) and state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference declined to comment.
GOP-led states have increasingly sought to create state-specific laws that come up against the federal government's authority to set immigration and border policy. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma refiled a complaint against that state's attorney general in May to block a bill that establishes a host of immigration crimes in the state.
Tennessee Republicans have called their bill a public safety measure that would protect vulnerable people exploited by traffickers.
Opponents say the bill as written is vague enough to encompass a host of services provided to immigrants and could have a chilling effect on landlords and groups who serve immigrant communities.
"There are ways in which I think this Tennessee law is uniquely bad," Powell, the attorney, said.
The bill creates a new state felony - separate to existing laws against human trafficking - for what it terms "human smuggling." Under the law, anyone who "intentionally conceals, harbors, or shields from detection" a person who has "illegally entered or remained in the United States" for the purpose of "commercial advantage or private financial gain" could face felony charges.
The bill exempts lawyers and health care providers who aid immigrants, but defines "harbor" as "providing shelter" and does not define shelter - a clause that Powell said throws the door open to potential prosecution of churches providing day shelter to immigrants through soup kitchens or English-as-a-second-language classes, and mixed-status families sharing residences.
Though lawmakers said only those who harbored immigrants "for financial gain" would be penalized, the lawsuit argues that the bill's language is vague enough that it appears to "criminalize a broad range of innocuous everyday activities that involve providing shelter to immigrants."
The language of "has illegally entered or remained in the United States" in the law is also vague, as it could be applied to pursue criminal cases involving sheltering individuals who entered the country illegally but have since gained protected status, either by seeking asylum or under the Violence Against Women Act, Powell said.
Advocates said the law's impending enactment has already pushed landlords to deny immigrants housing.
Anne Boatner, the executive director of the Eviction Right to Counsel program at the Nashville Hispanic Bar Association, said that if the law goes into effect, she fears landlords will use ICE agents as eviction enforcement. Her organization has received multiple calls from Nashville residents who had been abruptly kicked out by their landlords after the law was signed on May 9, she said.
In one case on May 14, Boatner said, a landlord had asked a client for proof of "papers stating that you can live in the United States for you and your husband because there are new laws that appeared saying if you don't have papers, then it is a problem and I can't have you living in the house." Despite the client's recently renewed lease, she was given five days to move out - or the landlord said, he "would have to contact ICE."
Garrett Causey, the Nashville landlord who joined the lawsuit alongside the Lutheran church, said in a court filing that he rents to a Guatemalan immigrant with legal status and worries about being prosecuted under the new law.
As a board member of an immigrant rights nonprofit, Causey said it is important to him to rent his house to tenants "regardless of their immigration status."
He said also worries that if he were charged with a crime for doing so, he'd lose his job.
The lawsuit alleges that the Tennessee law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by attempting to regulate immigration - which is preempted by federal law - and the 14th Amendment by inviting "arbitrary enforcement" with its vague language, and that it infringes on the First Amendment.
The Lutheran church considers providing shelter to people regardless of their immigration status to be "an expression of their faith," the complaint said.
"When government policies target our immigrant neighbors - detaining families, restricting asylum, or encroaching on places of faith - they wound the heart of our Christian calling," the Rev. Kevin Strickland, the Southeastern Synod's bishop, said in an email.
For more than a year, two Venezuelan asylum seekers lived in one of the church's buildings, according to the complaint. Although the church was not hiding these immigrants, it was providing them shelter and received donations earmarked to support this ministry, the lawsuit said. The church also regularly hosts soup kitchens, English as a second language classes and know-your-rights trainings.
Taylor, the state senator, said lawmakers developed the bill with consultation from business groups and law enforcement to focus on coyotes - paid smugglers - and organized human trafficking, and that it was not meant to target churches, landlords or immigrants seeking services. He said he'd be open to change if the law ends up being interpreted differently.
"If we get some guidance from the courts, we will amend the bill," he said.