Case Explained: Federal judge denies petition by Lutheran churches to block Tennessee “harboring” immigrants law • Tennessee Lookout – Legal Perspective

A federal judge has denied a petition brought by Lutheran churches to temporarily block a Tennessee law making it a crime to harbor immigrants without legal status. 

Republican lawmakers in April 2025 enacted the Human Smuggling Act, which created a felony for knowingly transporting or harboring immigrants without legal status. The law also created a misdemeanor crime for those who “harbor or hide” immigrants in the country illegally.

The Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church filed a legal challenge to the law last year, alleging the legislation would criminalize the ongoing faith-driven work of its churches to provide housing to asylum seekers, host day shelters, offer English classes, food pantries and other services to immigrants regardless of legal status. Two individual landlords joined the suit, saying they feared renting homes to immigrants would be considered “harboring” under the new law.

Suit seeks to block Tennessee law that makes it a crime to “harbor” certain immigrants

U.S. District Judge William Campbell on Tuesday wrote the text of the legislation is “plagued by undefined terms, quixotic comma splices and redundancies that render the precise scope of the prohibited conduct less than clear.” 

Nevertheless, Campbell concluded that there was “no evidence” that Tennessee officials intended it to apply to the services the churches highlighted in their legal challenge. 

Attorneys for the state defending the law have said church leaders and staff would not be prosecuted for providing charitable services to immigrants under the law, Campbell noted. 

“Given Defendants’ insistence that the Plaintiff’s conduct is not unlawful and does not subject them to risk of prosecution, Plaintiffs have not shown an immediate, non-speculative, non-theoretical threat of prosecution,” Campbell concluded. 

Campbell has not yet ruled on a separate motion by the state to dismiss the case entirely. 

Preliminary Injunction denied