Activists are suing Tennessee to cancel a new law that could ban landlords from renting apartments and homes to illegal aliens.
The law, which went into effect Tuesday, criminalizes harboring, transporting, or giving shelter to an illegal migrant with new language in the state’s criminal statutes and adding more definition to human trafficking laws.
Republican Sen. Brent Taylor said the law aims to fill a gap in laws against human trafficking and also insists that churches and landlords could not be prosecuted under the law for harboring illegals, according to the Tennessean.
Senate Bill 392 creates a new crime called human smuggling. The crime is designated as a Class E felony — the lowest level felony — with prison time between one and six years.
One of the actions that would trigger prosecution under the law includes transporting a person known to be illegal with the purpose of hiding them from law enforcement. The second is by concealing, harboring, or shielding from detection a known illegal alien.
Critics claim the law would prevent landlords from renting to illegals, or churches from giving aid to illegals. But Taylor disputes the claim and says the law is aimed at “coyotes” who deal in smuggling illegals into the U.S. for a fee.
“We weren’t looking to penalize families traveling, we were looking to try to get people who were actually smuggling people into the country and into the state for personal financial gain or commercial advantage,” Taylor explained.
He added that the law intends to stop people from “taking advantage of an illegal alien.”
Taylor also noted that those who hide the transport of people they know are illegal aliens are “exacerbating the problem of transporting illegal aliens into Tennessee, but they’re also taking advantage of those illegal aliens.”
However, Democrat Rep. Bob Freeman said the law is too vague and leaves the door open to charge landlords and churches.
“It’s up to an interpretation of local municipalities that could just go in and you know, start picking people up,” Freeman said.
No state Democrats voted for the bill.
Activists have already filed lawsuits to cancel the law, the Washington Post reported.
“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 who is representing a church organization that claims the law violates their First Amendment rights.
Critics also say they have evidence that landlords are already afraid of the law and have already started refusing to rent to migrants with questionable paperwork, or who are illegal.
Taylor said the bill will be amended if there is “guidance from the courts,” but he still defends the purpose of the bill.
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