Tennessee GOP bill would require immigration checks for local government aid

House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally announcing a package of bills targeted at immigrants on Jan. 15, 2026. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

As the Trump administration moves to limit immigrant access to federal public benefits, two Tennessee Republicans are introducing sweeping legislation requiring citizenship and legal immigration verification of any applicant for public aid at state and local agencies.

The bill (HB1710/SB1915) by Rep. Dennis Powers of Jacksboro and Sen. Ed Jackson of Jackson mandates that state and local departments report all those who apply for public benefits without proof of citizenship or legal immigration status to Tennessee’s newly created Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division — an expansion of the division’s publicly enumerated responsibilities, which are focused on fostering local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Local public health departments and a broad range of city and county agencies that fail to comply could be subject to an Attorney General investigation and, ultimately, see their funding cut. Local government employees who fail to comply with the legislation could be arrested and charged with a misdemenor.

Powers said Friday the measure is designed with Tennessee taxpayers in mind, to stem public funding going towards immigrants unlawfully present in Tennessee.

“I think that all of our tax dollars need to be going for the purpose that they’re intended for, and that purpose is for people that are legally here,” Powers said. “We’re already doing this at the state level. We’re just making sure that you’re doing it at the local level, too.”

Housing aid, homeless services, public health, childcare assistance and food programs are examples of programs that would be included in the bill’s verification and reporting requirements, Powers said. Powers said that the bill encompasses programs that already verify immigration status, but is also intended to hold local agencies more accountable.

“State agencies are already required to verify status, but so many programs we’re talking about are run through city and county governments,” Powers said. “A lot of times we’re finding out that they’re not verifying benefits for the local residents and we want to make sure that all taxpayer benefits (go) to the lawful residents only.”

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The bill as currently written applies only to adults. Power said that it would extend to verifying the immigration status of a parent or guardian of a child seeking vaccines at a local public health clinic.

The bill is among more than a dozen introduced as part of the Tennessee’s Republican supermajority’s “Immigration 2026” package, rolled out in January by House Speaker Cameron Sexton. 

Sexton said the legislation was written in consultation with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a key architect of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Tennessee Republican leaders have called the package of bills a “model for the rest of the nation.”

In unveiling the package, Tennessee Republicans said immigrants cost the state roughly $1 billion, a figure that encompasses the cost of public education. Immigrant advocates have countered with data showing immigrants in Tennessee contribute $1.4 billion annually in state and local taxes.

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The legislation comes as the Trump administration has taken steps to narrow the categories of immigrants eligible for public benefits, excluding certain categories of legal immigrants such as refugees and asylum seekers from Medicaid and other programs via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. In Tennessee, about 8,500 refugees and asylum seekers will be cut from TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, on Oct. 1, TennCare Director Stephen Smith said.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidelines that expand the types of programs that fall under the federal definition of “public benefits,” that exclude unqualified immigrants, including certain legal immigrants. The expanded list of programs includes services offered by community health centers receiving federal funding, Head Start and family planning services.

“Fewer categories of immigrants will be able to access fewer kinds of federally funded public benefits,” said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a Washington, D.C.-based health policy nonprofit health policy organization.