Thread: OK: Law: If groups help, can they go to prison?

By Devona Walker
Staff Writer
Social services agencies say they will not be the "enforcersâ€

The legislation
House Bill 1804, intended to curb illegal immigration, provides the following:

•A statutory mandate for law enforcement to turn over illegal immigrants to federal immigration authorities.

•Felony penalties for Oklahomans who house, aid or transport illegal immigrants. Social services agencies that receive public funds might be legally culpable under the law.

What does it mean?
State Rep. Randy Terrill, HB 1804 co-author, said the law is intended to:

•Stop illegal immigrants from getting state identification cards, jobs, housing and publicly funded social services.

•Authorize local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws.

The targets
The law was aimed at landlords, employers and those who traffic illegal immigrants.

The implications
It was not intended to penalize privately funded social services agencies. However, Terrill said, the broad wording of the law leaves much of it open to interpretation.

Daily Oklahoman ran this stuff on the front page today, just had to scan the headlines.


Here's another story from the issue:
[quote]By Ron Jackson
Staff Writer
ALTUS — Former President Ronald Reagan will forever be a hero in the Ortiz family.


Zosimo and Maria Ortiz left everyone they loved in a small village in southern Mexico, risked their lives to enter the United States and have endured hard labor for more than three decades to give six children "a better life.â€

It is hard for me to consider these people who were given amnesty by Reagan as legal citizens of this country. They came into this country illegally and did not earn citizen or legal status while milion of others wait to get in by obeying immigration laws.
It is the same with "anchor babies." It is hard for me to consider them as legal citizens.
It simple is not right to give people something they have not earned and they have broken laws to get it.