This lawsuit challenges Section 5 of Tennessee’s new anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 392, on behalf of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a local landlord, and a long-time Tennessean who shares his home with his son-in-law who is seeking asylum. Section 5, which takes effect on July 1, 2025, creates a new state crime for “human smuggling.” Among other things, this new law criminalizes merely providing shelter to any individual a person knows has illegally entered or remained in the United States, as determined by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) for financial benefit. The law is written so broadly that it could even be used to arrest and prosecute people who provide shelter to immigrants who were once undocumented but subsequently obtained lawful status.
By doing so, the law puts thousands of Tennesseans at risk of felony prosecution for a wide range of innocuous, everyday activities, including:
- Renting an apartment to an immigrant who entered or remained in the United States unlawfully;
- Providing housing to undocumented family members who help pay the bills;
- For a charity, offering shelter to undocumented immigrants if the charity receives donations or grants to support that work; and
- For houses of worship like a church, hosting such immigrants in its buildings for religious events, a potluck, English classes, or know-your-rights trainings, if the church receives donations to support that work.
Plaintiffs contend that, in enacting Section 5 of Senate Bill 392, Tennessee violated the Supremacy Clause by impermissibly intruding on the federal government’s central role in regulating immigration, and violated their right to due process because the law is unconstitutionally vague. The Synod also claims that Section 5 violates its churches’, pastors’, and congregants’ First Amendment rights for free exercise of their religion and freedom of association with immigrants for religious purposes.
The individual plaintiffs also seek to represent a class of Tennesseans potentially subject to criminalization under the law.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville by the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, the American Immigration Council, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC).
