Tennessee House Bill HB0177

Tennessee 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 1/15/25
• Refer: 3/4/25
• Refer: 3/25/25

Caption

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; Title 7; Title 8; Title 38; Title 39; Title 40 and Title 55, relative to illegal immigration.

Summary

HB0177 is a directive-style bill focused on illegal immigration enforcement. Rather than creating new penalties or changing substantive immigration rules, it urges the Tennessee Department of Safety to study how federal immigration laws are being enforced in the state, including detentions, removals, investigations, and broader immigration-related progress and challenges. If the department conducts the study, it must deliver a report of findings and recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly by January 1, 2026. The bill is framed as an information-gathering measure and a policy review tool. Its practical effect is to encourage state-level assessment of immigration enforcement operations and to provide lawmakers with a formal report that could inform future legislation or administrative action. Because it references multiple titles of the Tennessee Code, it sits within a broad set of state law areas touching public safety, criminal law, corrections, and transportation-related enforcement, but the bill itself does not directly amend those provisions in the text provided.

Impact

HB0177 would not directly alter immigration enforcement statutes in the text provided; instead, it would prompt the Department of Safety to evaluate current enforcement activity and report to state leaders. The main legal impact is procedural and advisory, creating a pathway for future policy changes by generating findings on federal immigration enforcement, detentions, removals, and related state challenges. The bill may affect the Department of Safety and, indirectly, agencies involved in immigration-related enforcement or detention, but it does not itself impose new duties on private parties or change criminal penalties.

Sentiment

The available vote history suggests generally favorable support for the bill at the subcommittee level, with a 7-1 recommendation to pass as amended and refer onward. That pattern indicates the measure was viewed positively by most members as a reasonable study or oversight proposal. No committee transcript is available, so there is no recorded debate to show broader public or legislative sentiment beyond the recorded vote.

Contention

The likely point of contention is whether the state should devote resources to studying immigration enforcement and whether such a study could be used to justify stronger enforcement measures later. Supporters appear to favor the bill as a fact-finding and reporting measure, while the lone dissenting vote suggests at least one member had reservations about the approach, scope, or policy direction. Because the bill does not include substantive enforcement changes, disagreement is more likely about the political implications of the study than about immediate legal effects.