Thread: OK: Controversial Immigration Bill Approved

Another U.S. state to pass law targeting illegal immigration
April 04, 2007

Oklahoma may join several other U.S. states in giving police the power to detain illegal immigrants and punish companies which hire them, it was reported on Tuesday.

The state is expected to pass a tough bill which will deny welfare benefits, in-state college tuition rates and numerous state subsidies to those in the country illegally, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The law would also empower police to detain illegal immigrants and require businesses that do work for the state to prove that their employees are legally in the country.

Several states in the U.S. have passed similar laws to crackdown on illegal immigration, said the newspaper.

Law makers said they would take the tough measure because they were frustrated with the federal government's response to illegal immigration.

The legislation, written with help from a Washington, D.C. legal organization that opposes illegal immigration, comes after similar laws were passed last year in Colorado and Georgia. Like legislators in those states, the leader of the Oklahoma said he was tired of waiting for Washington politicians to fix a problem that costs his state millions of dollars a year.

"Illegal aliens will not come here if there are no jobs waiting for them. They will not come if there are no taxpayer subsidies. And they certainly won't come if they know they will be physically detained until they are deported," said the bill's author, Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill. "Oklahoma is obviously not the wealthiest state in the union. We can't afford to become a welfare state for the rest of the world."

Despite opposition from religious groups and some of the state's most powerful business lobbyists, the legislation passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives 88-9 last month. The bill is scheduled for a vote later Tuesday in a state Senate committee; if approved there, it would advance to the Senate floor.

But business circles voiced concern that the law, if passed, would hurt the economy in the state.

"The business community is very concerned about the bill as it stands right now, said Mike Seney, a senior vice president with the state chamber of commerce. "This bill needs work."

The United States has an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, mostly from Latin America.

Source: Xinhua

http://english.people.com.cn/200704/04/ ... 63555.html

The business community is very concerned about the bill as it stands right now, said Mike Seney, a senior vice president with the state chamber of commerce. "This bill needs work."

It's big business that really tick me off those greedy #******!
make us pay for all the freebees while their profits soar from that cheap labor force.

Senate is likely to pass state's first immigration law
The House has already approved the bill, but Gov. Henry won't say whether he'll sign it.

By Judy Gibbs Robinson and John Greiner
Staff Writers

It won't be the first and may not be the toughest in the nation, but Oklahoma's first comprehensive immigration law is beginning to look like a sure thing.

Negotiations that appeased business and salvaged much of an in-state tuition program got the proposed Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act bill through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

The House already has approved it. The full Senate is expected to consider it this week.

Rep. Randy Terrill, the House author, thinks he and Sen. James Williamson, the Senate sponsor, have the 25 votes needed to pass it.

If it gets through without substantial change, Terrill said he will accept Senate amendments, which could put the bill on Gov. Brad Henry's desk the week beginning April 15.

As is his custom, Henry would not say whether he will sign the bill. But during last year's re-election campaign, he repeatedly said it is the federal government's responsibility — not the state's — to enforce immigration law.

"I sure hope he has changed his mind about that,” said Terrill, R-Moore.

Opponents discouraged
Immigrant advocates fighting the bill described themselves as discouraged but not defeated.

"We know it's not a done deal. We certainly have not given up,” said Giovanni Perry, an immigration lawyer and acting chairman of the Governor's Advisory Committee on Latin American and Hispanic Affairs.

Opponents were unable to get nonprofits, churches and shelters exempted from a provision making it a violation of state law to harbor or transport illegal immigrants.

"This is something we will continue to work on,” Pamela Maisano, legislative advocate for the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, wrote in an e-mail message last weekWednesday.

Opponents took solace in small victories: The latest version does not require schools to check citizenship status before issuing identification cards for campus use. And a 2003 law letting some illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition and apply for aid to attend college appears to be largely intact.

"It's just kind of cumbersome the way they've written it ... but it does appear to save the benefit,” said Armando Pena, who oversees enforcement of the in-state tuition law for the State Regents for Higher Education.

Students' path
To the relief of higher education advocates, the committee version recognized that many illegal immigrant students cannot apply to become legal under current law.

It says those students have to apply to become legal within a year after the federal government creates a path for them to do so.

But Terrill said that language was included by mistake, and he warned it could be changed before the bill reaches the Senate floor.

"Nobody's sure where that language came from,” Terrill said.

Sen. Tom Adelson, D-Tulsa, joined Republicans to approve the bill in the Judiciary Committee and said he will vote for it on the floor if it isn't amended. In the evenly divided Senate, Adelson's vote could be the margin of victory if Republicans stick together.

Adelson said he particularly liked preserving in-state tuition for students already in college.

"I don't think kids are responsible for the sins of their parents,” he said.

The State Chamber and other business groups also opposed the bill before Terrill and Williamson agreed to some business-friendly changes in a two-hour negotiating session March 30.

"It was really unwieldy. Employer sanctions were vague, harsh and unenforceable,” said Mike Seney, a spokesman for The State Chamber.

Employer options
The latest version lets employers choose among several programs to verify employability of new hires instead of insisting on one federal government program that many consider flawed.

And private employers don't have to verify employability until July 1, 2008.

"This will give us about six to eight months to look at how it works for the public sector, and if there are problems, we can change it during the session next year,” Seney said.

Third to take on issue
If the bill becomes law, Oklahoma will be the third state after Georgia and Colorado to take on immigration issues in a big way. Georgia passed its omnibus immigration law in April 2006 and Colorado followed in July.

Oklahoma could have been first if Terrill's first try at immigration reform had passed in 2006, but the lawmaker said he has no regrets.

"In this particular case, I think it's better to be right than to be first,” he said.

http://www.newsok.com/article/3037527