NASHVILLE - Everyone from road builders to food vendors who do business with the state of Tennessee must now pledge that they don’t knowingly hire illegal immigrants on state contracts.

The combined effect of a new state law which took effect Sunday and an executive order signed by Gov. Phil Bredesen last month means state contracts starting this week will include anti-illegal immigration language, a provision that could affect about 2,500 contracts a year and millions of dollars in state work.

Critics say the new rules are nothing more than election-year politicking - lots of hot air with little impact. The state hasn’t decided exactly how it will enforce the new rules, leaving at least one contractors’ group wondering what comes next and how invasive the new rules will be.

“I can’t argue that there’s any problem with the state asking people to attest that they aren’t knowingly hiring illegal immigrants,” said Bob Pitts, the senior policy adviser for the Middle Tennessee chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc.

“The devil’s in the details.”

Other employers don’t think the state’s new rules or Bredesen’s order have a lot of teeth.

Employers already are required by federal law to get documents from new hires proving they are eligible for work in the United States, and they must keep those records on file.
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April 04, 2006

The state Senate passed a bill Monday that paves the way for the Tennessee Highway Patrol to have illegal immigration enforcement authority.

The measure requires the commissioner of the state’s Department of Safety to make an agreement with the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to train Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) officers in enforcing “federal immigration laws, detention and removals, and investigations of the state of Tennessee,” according to the bill and its amendments.
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Gov. Phil Bredesen is also generally against the bill, not because of racial profiling reasons, but rather because of fiscal ones.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the state or we ought to be spending a lot of our money having the Highway Patrol expanded to go out and look for illegal immigrants or something,” Bredesen said last week, adding that he thinks immigration is a national issue.
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