Anita Wadhwani
Senior ReporterAnita Wadhwani is a senior reporter for the Tennessee Lookout. The Tennessee AP Broadcasters and Media (TAPME) named her Journalist of the Year in 2019 as well as giving her the Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Journalism. Wadhwani is formerly an investigative reporter with The Tennessean who focused on the impact of public policies on the people and places across Tennessee. She is a graduate of Columbia University in New York and the University of California at Berkeley School of Journalism. Wadhwani lives in Nashville with her partner and two children.
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The legislation requires local government agencies that distribute benefits to check immigration status and report unqualified immigrants to the state’s new immigration office; it includes criminal penalties for public employees who fail to comply -
Thousands of legal immigrants will lose access to TennCare beginning in October as a result of new Trump administration policy, while Tennessee officials separately consider barring pregnant women without legal immigration status from accessing publicly-funded prenatal care. -
Tennessee construction companies are feeling the impact of the Trump administration immigration crackdown as workers failed to show up at job sites due to fears of enforcement activity, according to a survey by the Associated General Contractors of America. -
Tennessee’s infant mortality rate has dipped since 2019 but remains significantly and persistently higher than the national average, a new report published by the state’s health department found. -
An audit by the Tennessee Comptroller outlines new and persistent failures in caring for abused and neglected children taken into custody by the Department of Children’s Services. -
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris says he receives daily federal arrest information but fears retribution in sharing it publicly -
The volunteer group, Vecindarios 901, responded to 3-5 calls each day about immigration enforcement activities in Memphis during the first Trump administration. Now it gets up to 140 calls daily. -
The panel also OK’d subpoenas to the state legislature, governor and Dept. of Health for documents containing internal discussions of the state’s abortion ban -
Local leaders have set up text alert systems, issued legal check lists and demanded police comply with a longstanding civil rights agreements -
Scores of Tennessee nonprofit agencies are now contending with a flurry of directives from state and federal officials about who they can and cannot serve as the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration reshapes crime victim funding.
