http://www.newsok.com/article/1674111/

Experts say state can take stand

By The Associated Press

A growing influx of illegal immigrants is driving down wages and costing Oklahoma taxpayers millions of dollars, but the state can do something about it, experts testified Thursday before a joint House-Senate panel.
The hearing before members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Commerce, Industry and Labor Committee is part of an interim study on the immigration issue requested by Sen. Tom Adelson, D-Tulsa, and Rep. Lance Cargill, R-Harrah.

Last year, Adelson introduced the Oklahoma Fair Employment Act, which would penalize employers who hire illegal aliens and give employees who are displaced because of those hirings legal status to sue. The proposal won committee approval but the Senate did not act on it.

Vernon Briggs, an expert on immigration from Cornell University, said states should do everything they can to bring pressure on the federal government to address the problem.

Briggs said there is virtually no enforcement of federal law to keep illegal immigrants out of the country, despite problems caused by the influx of workers, such as depressed wages and increases in health care, welfare and education costs.

"I've testified before Congress 14 times and it's like batting my head against the wall," he said.

The result of the failure of Congress to act is to leave states with increasing social problems and the limited ability to deal with those problems, he said.

Jim Curry, president of the AFL-CIO, said the some Oklahoma businesses in the building trades are losing contracts to some unscrupulous companies that hire illegal aliens. He said that will lead to layoffs of Oklahoma workers.

Michael M. Hethmon, attorney for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, testified that Adelson's bill is a way to respond to "the problem of unauthorized employment of illegal aliens" without infringing on federal authority.

Hethmon suggested other steps state government could take, including amending its workers' compensation law to give "illegally employed aliens" the right to sue their employer if they are injured on the job.

Although national immigration reform groups have hailed Adelson's approach, it has been criticized by some, including David Castillo, chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Oklahoma City.

Castillo said it would be "bad for business" and could wind up penalizing legal immigrants.

The U.S. Census in 2004 estimated Oklahoma an illegal resident population of 46,000, but other estimates put the figure at about 75,000, Adelson said. The state has 3.5 million residents, of which about 305,000 are foreign-born.

Under Adelson's bill, a company that hires illegal immigrants would have its certificate of incorporation suspended and lose any income tax deductions linked to payments to the immigrants.

Briggs said no one really knows how many millions of illegal immigrants are in the United States because "people are not going to report themselves for an illegal act."

He said one study suggested that 76 percent of illegal immigrants are never detected. "It's a massive number and it's only going to get worse," he said.

Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the country range from 10 million to 20 million.