Thread: In Our View: Word illegal is key to issue

In Our View: Word illegal is key to issue
Published November 23, 2007 01:44 pm -

Oklahoma may be exporting its tough anti-illegal immigration law to other states. Certainly, it could serve as a model for those states weary of waiting for Congress to clamp off the streams of illegal aliens crossing the U.S. border.

Critics have called the new law racist and excessive.

But the bottom line is that it would make Oklahoma unfriendly territory for those who illegally enter the United States and try to get work.

Under the law, an illegal immigrant is not allowed to hold a job or to sign up for public benefits. And those people or businesses that transport or harbor those in the country illegally could suffer severe penalties.

A number of lawsuits reportedly have been filed challenging the law as unfair and its constitutionality has not yet been tested. But a federal court has dismissed a lawsuit based largely on the issue of fairness to immigrants.

It has been estimated that Oklahoma has 100,000 illegal immigrants that the cost of education and other services for them runs about $200 million annually.

The key word in the law is not immigration, but rather “illegal.â€

Illegal is the word. It is too bad that our government does not feel the same way. However if we tried to kick them all out of there comfortable little offices, they would scream that this goes against the Constitution and therefore is illegal.