Latest news with #JeffYarbro
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Profound Inhumanity of ICE Raids
If you're ever booked into a Davidson County, Tenn., jail — no matter how minor the misdemeanor, no matter if your case is later dismissed — the jail's booking system automatically sends your arrest information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under a state law passed in 2024, local law enforcement agencies here are obliged to honor any resulting detention requests for 48 hours beyond normal release time. A system that delivers the same penalty for committing a violent crime and for driving with a broken taillight is inherently unjust. But this system was at least built to detain only people accused of breaking the law. And that is a very different thing from the wide, seemingly race-based net that ICE has been throwing in Nashville this month. 'They have been hunting us,' said Luis Sura, the president of Better Options TN, an immigrant-assistance nonprofit in Franklin. The hunt started on May 3, when ICE agents joined forces with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and began to pull over drivers in the largely immigrant corridors of South Nashville. In one neighborhood alone, during a single shift, patrol officers made 'about five times more stops than the highway patrol makes in all of Davidson County on an average day,' State Senator Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, said in a statement. 'They were basically pulling someone new over every two minutes. That's not a 'public safety operation.'' The historical echoes here are particularly acute to someone like me, a white person born in the Jim Crow South, one who lives in a city the Trail of Tears once ran through. I was grateful to learn, at least, that Nashville's Metro Police was not involved in the ICE arrests. 'What's clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm,' Nashville's mayor, Freddie O'Connell, said at a May 5 news conference. Tennessee is a deeply red state — blood red, fire ant red — but in this blue city, where only 35 percent of voters supported Donald Trump in November, we recognize the contributions of a vast majority of our immigrant neighbors. We understand all too well that the Trump administration, aided by the willing cooperation of red-state officials, is targeting even immigrants who entered the country through legal mechanisms. As the ICE arrests in Nashville continued over the following week, it became increasingly clear that neither justice nor public safety is what these roundups were primarily designed to deliver. The sweeps have upended life in this city. But the community has stepped up, to the extent that the law allows, with both information and financial help. The Tennessee Immigrants and Refugee Rights Coalition is posting frequently on social media, explaining the rights that immigrants have under U.S. law and the best way to respond when encountering ICE agents. The American Muslim Advisory Council and Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors offered a rights workshop for immigrants planning to travel. The Southern Christian Coalition provided bystander training in the best ways to help when witnessing ICE encounters. In partnership with the city, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee established the Belonging Fund to support nonprofits that offer emergency assistance to families affected by the sweeps. In only four months, the terrible travesties of justice and the failures of basic decency being wrought by this administration and by the failure of Congress to check its destruction have become nearly uncountable. But the inhumanity of these immigration sweeps — the brutal glee of rounding up human beings, people who live and work in our midst — is what brings me closest to irrecoverable despair. Surely any human being can imagine what it's like to be waiting for a loved one who does not come home. Any one of us can feel the unfairness of being carted away without due process. It would take an act of sheer will to ignore the human beings — so critical to the working of the country, so deeply integrated into our communities — that ICE is sweeping up. They may be undocumented, but they are not invisible. 'The most ubiquitous immigrants are also the least valued,' wrote Renata Soto, the founder and president of Mosaic Changemakers, in a guest column for Nashville Business Journal. These are the people who grow and harvest and process the food we buy, the people who wash dishes in the restaurants where we eat and stock the shelves in the stores where we shop, the people who cut the grass at the buildings where we work and who clean those buildings after we have gone home. They are the hardworking people who built those buildings, too, foundation crew by framing crew by roofing crew by drywall crew by carpentry crew by painting crew. And yet our president refers to them as inhuman. 'No, they're not humans. They're not humans. They're animals,' Mr. Trump said in an interview last year. We know something about that kind of evil here in the South. White Southerners kept Black human beings enslaved for centuries. We expelled the First Peoples from their lands, most famously on the Trail of Tears. We responded to the civil rights movement with police dogs and fire hoses and billy sticks and guns. It isn't necessary to know the history of slavery, the Trail of Tears or white resistance to civil rights to understand the deep injustice of what ICE is doing. That reality may finally be getting to Americans. The far right is working hard to rewrite history, but most of us still know cruelty when we see it. And we cannot let cruelty stand.
Axios
12-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Tennessee among the first states to require computer science for high schoolers
Starting with the class of 2028, Tennessee high school students must take at least one computer science course before they can graduate. Why it matters: The new policy, which state lawmakers approved unanimously in 2022, was designed to prepare students for an influx of jobs that require a deeper understanding of technology and AI. The latest: Top business leaders are urging states nationwide to follow Tennessee's lead. More than 200 CEOs signed a letter this month urging state leaders to mandate artificial intelligence and computer science classes as a high school graduation requirement. Signees included leaders of American Express, Airbnb, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Microsoft, Yahoo, Zoom and Uber. State of play: Tennessee is one of 12 states that already have a computer science mandate in place, per How it works: The new graduation requirement kicked in for freshmen who entered high school last fall. In addition to the high school requirement, the law also required schools at every level to enhance their computer science offerings. By the numbers: The state logged a massive uptick in computer science enrollment even before the graduation requirement began. Middle and high school student enrollment in computer science courses sat at 32,893 statewide during the 2020-21 school year. It shot to 60,217 by the 2023-24 school year. What they're saying:"To be a full participant in the economy and the world, you have to be able to understand the technology that's driving the world," state Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) tells Axios. Yarbro helped push Tennessee to draft a plan for its approach to computer science education. The plan called for more course options statewide. "I want our students and people generally to be able to understand and shape these technologies more than be shaped by them." The bottom line: Students who attend high schools that offer a computer science course end up earning 8% higher salaries than those who don't, regardless of career path or whether they attend college, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. (The study examined the impact of giving students access to computer science classes, not of requiring it.)
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislation slashing development oversight of isolated wetlands heads to Gov. Bill Lee's desk
Water collects among trees at the West Tennessee Wetlands Mitigation Bank — a wetland restored from its former days as farmland — near the Loosahatchie River in Shelby County, Tenn. on March 11, 2025. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht for Tennessee Lookout) A bill slashing regulations for an estimated 80% of Tennessee's non-federally protected wetlands is headed to Gov. Bill Lee's desk Monday after receiving approval from the General Assembly. The bill's West Tennessee Republican sponsors — Rep. Kevin Vaughan and Sen. Brent Taylor — said the legislation removes onerous and seemingly subjective mitigation requirements for landowners and developers. Environmental advocates and scientists said the legislation paves the way for the destruction of Tennessee's natural resources. The bill passed 71-21 with one abstention in the House, and 25-6 in the Senate. Since the 1970s, wetland regulations in Tennessee have required developers and landowners to seek permission from the state before draining or altering wetlands. The swampy areas can host diverse species, soak up rain water and filter it as it seeps into groundwater tables, recharging aquifers. Alterations to wetlands required developers to pay for mitigation — efforts to preserve or restore other wetlands nearby. (Flooding) is a constant that we are dealing with, and these two things are related … and what (Sen. Brent Taylor) belittles as 'damp dirt' is actually the stuff that matters. – Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville Vaughan and Taylor's legislation scraps automatic mitigation requirements for most of Tennessee's isolated wetlands, which lack surface connections to navigable rivers and lakes. Federal law requires mitigation for those larger water bodies, but a 2023 Supreme Court ruling removed isolated wetlands from federal control, leaving their regulation entirely to the states. Sen. Page Walley, a West Tennessee Republican who helped shape the legislation, said his district includes swampland. 'That land over in that very agriculturally rich area is flat, it does flood, and it is replete with a variety of wonderful wetlands, but things change … and the state was given the authority to begin to monitor that,' Walley said Monday. The Southern Environmental Law Center estimates the legislation will axe development regulations for up to 80% of Tennessee's isolated wetlands. Recent modeling commissioned by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) indicates most of the state's isolated wetlands are located in West Tennessee, a region expected to see intense development around Ford's new Blue Oval City manufacturing campus in Haywood County. More than 30,000 acres of isolated wetlands fall in the northwest corner of the state, which remains inundated with historic levels of water after severe storms caused generational flooding earlier this month. Nashville Democrat Jeff Yarbro grew up in Dyersburg, one of several West Tennessee towns that flooded. '(Flooding) is a constant that we are dealing with, and these two things are related … and what (Sen. Taylor) belittles as 'damp dirt' is actually the stuff that matters,' Yarbro said. 'The research is pretty clear that it's these smaller wetlands that … actually reduce the peak flooding levels in communities.' The Senate rejected Sen. Heidi Campbell's attempt to add a 2-year sunset provision to the law and an amendment that would have brought the law in line with the recommendations presented by TDEC in 2024. The sponsors initially planned to eliminate all state regulation of isolated wetlands to match federal law, citing other states' decisions to do the same. Wetlands protections built an industry for mitigation banking. Rollbacks could erode it. Instead, the legislation defines four types of isolated wetlands and sets regulatory thresholds for each of them. Artificial wetlands, a new category, are wetlands created purposefully or inadvertently by the alterations of humans or beavers. Developers are allowed to drain and fill this type of wetland with no regulatory oversight. No permits or mitigation are required for alterations to low-quality isolated wetlands up to 1 acre, or moderate-quality wetlands up to one-quarter acre. These wetlands have minimal or moderate roles in ecosystems, natural water cycles and chemical cycles, according to the legislation. Exact definitions for wetland quality will be created through a rule-making process that includes public input opportunities. General permits and 1-1 mitigation are required for low-quality isolated wetlands from 1 to 2 acres in size. Changes to moderate-quality isolated wetlands from one-quarter acre to 2 acres require a general permit with mitigation capped at a 1-1 ratio (which raises to 2-1 on the second acre). Alterations to high-quality isolated wetlands will continue to require more specialized Aquatic Resource Alteration Permits from the state and mitigation, as will changes to low- and moderate-quality isolated wetlands larger than 2 acres. About 80% of Tennessee's isolated wetlands are smaller than one acre, according to SELC Tennessee Director George Nolan. Around 94% of isolated wetlands are smaller than 2 acres. The legislation also prevents TDEC from considering isolated wetlands of any quality when determining a project's cumulative impact, even if the project encompasses other federally regulated wetlands. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Home Builders of Tennessee supported the legislation, as did the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national firm that fought for deregulation of American wetlands at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023. They said the changes will support property rights and bring down costs for developers. Several environmental groups, scientists and businesses that restore wetlands and sell mitigation credits to developers opposed the legislation, warning that the clause ignoring cumulative impact could super-charge wetlands destruction and hinder an industry that has invested more than $1 billion in restoration and conservation projects in Tennessee. Vaughan said he sees mitigation requirements as 'trampling people's private property rights.' 'I may own a piece of property and because someone else says that there is something on my property that has resource value that I'm going to have to pay a third party to be able to use my own property. That does not compute,' Vaughan said Monday. Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, voted against the bill. 'If these changes are being made to improve our environment, are being made to improve the quality of life of people in Tennessee, that's one thing,' Pearson said. 'But if we are changing the protections of our natural resources on behalf of corporate entities to be able to make more profit, I have a significant problem with that.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tennessee planning $6 million audit of Memphis Shelby schools
Tennessee lawmakers are proposing a $6 million audit of Memphis Shelby County Schools.(Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht for Tennessee Lookout) Tennessee lawmakers could spend $6 million to audit Memphis Shelby County Schools as a potential forerunner to a state 'takeover' of the district. Senate finance committee Chairman Bo Watson confirmed Monday another $3 million for a forensic audit was placed in the Senate's $59.6 billion budget plan to go with $3 million in Gov. Bill Lee's supplemental budget amendment. Senators also placed $4.5 million in the budget plan to expand Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's special litigation unit, which previously was tasked with opposing former President Joe Biden's policies. When the 2025 session started, Republican lawmakers started discussing appointment of a state management board that would supersede the elected Memphis Shelby County School Board. Memphis residents testified against the bill. The proposal hasn't gained a foothold yet, but lawmakers appear bent on auditing the school district even though the Comptroller's Office conducts school system audits. Sen. Brent Taylor, a Shelby County Republican, said Monday the audit is needed to start a deeper look at the school district. 'That kind of money spent on that kind of audit, that's the kind of audit that somebody goes to the pokey over, and this is something that's been building for decades, and it's time we finally take the bull by the horns,' Taylor said. He didn't pinpoint any wrongdoing on the part of Memphis Shelby County Schools officials. Taylor, who is sponsoring the bill to make major changes in the district, said lawmakers shied away from a takeover because of problems with the Achievement School District, which is being abolished because it failed to make major improvements over a decade in spite of a billion dollars in expenses. The bill's wording remains in talks, though, and an advisory board could be placed in the measure, he said. Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville, a member of the finance committee, called the pending expenditure 'ridiculous.' 'The purpose of our school funding is to educate children, not to create ammunition for some garbage political fights,' Yarbro said. Republican Rep. Mark White of East Memphis has been pushing for change this session to deal with what he calls 'a decades-old issue of underperformance.' The purpose of our school funding is to educate children, not to create ammunition for some garbage political fights. – Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville His bill contains a provision to put a nine-member management group appointed by the state in charge of operating the school district, giving it authority over the locally-elected school board and administrators. Taylor's version isn't quite as restrictive but puts the state in charge by allowing Tennessee's education commissioner, with approval from the Department of Education, to remove the schools director or school board members and allow the county commission to replace them. If a school district goes through three district directors in three years, a county mayor could appoint a new director for a four-year term. The Senate bill also would lift income caps on the Education Savings Account in effect in Shelby County, the governor's initial private-school voucher program, and change the process for a public school to become a charter school. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After secret sex recordings, Tennessee bill to change illegal photography law advances
A bill strengthening victims' rights after an illegal photography violation passed its first committee hurdle on Tuesday after a group of Nashville women banded together to make changes to Tennessee law. The women last year discovered they had been secretly recorded during sex without their consent after a Nashville man was arrested and charged with eight counts of unlawful photography. But several other victims could not pursue charges in the case. The current statute of limitations allows just one year to pursue charges from the date of the crime, which the victims say is unacceptable in cases where any evidence of the crime was hidden until after the statute expired. "There were dozens of women, tens of thousands of files and images, but there was not a clean pathway to prosecution except for those within that one-year statute," Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, said. Yarbro is sponsoring SB 335, which would amend the statute of limitations to the date of discovery, rather than the date of the original crime, allowing victims more time to pursue justice in their cases. Yarbro's bill would also make victims of unlawful photography eligible for an order of protection. "We want to ensure moving forward women who are in similar circumstances, with perhaps fewer resources than we currently have, are able to get the justice that we feel was denied for so many of our new friends," Laura Cantwell, one of the victims, previously told The Tennessean. The bill received unanimous approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, clearing its way for a full floor vote. The House bill is up for a committe hearing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a separate bill would increase unlawful photography crimes in sexual situations from misdemeanors to Class D felonies. In November, Matthew Vollmer was arrested and charged with eight counts of unlawful photography after his girlfriend discovered explicit videos, allegedly filmed with a hidden camera, on his computer depicting multiple women. Vollmer pleaded not guilty to filming four victims and is currently awaiting a March trial date. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: After secret sex recordings, Tennessee bill to change law advances
