Thread: Oklahoma passes immigration measure with little opposition

Stealthy wrote:

The girlfriend and I are even thinking about moving to a state where illegals are NOT as welcome.

OK is where I`ll be heading shortly.

The half-dozen senators who opposed the bill believe it is a “mean-spirited” measure ...

Just what the heck is 'mean spirited' supposed to mean? Is the bill mean to those who don't obey the law? A bill like this is supposed to be mean towards law-breakers. It's about time one of the states pullls its act together and starts to enforce what needs to be enforced. I hope this catches on like wild fire with the other states.

The half-dozen senators who opposed the bill believe it is a “mean-spirited” measure ...

And again they ignore the main issue,, ILLEGAL!!

April 23, 2007, 12:00AM
Oklahoma immigration bill casts one of the widest nets


By KIM COBB
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle



Georgia
The Security and Immigration Compliance Act of 2006:

•Contractors to verify eligibility status of new employees; public employers to participate in the federal employment eligibility-verification program.

•Employers to withhold 6 percent of an employee's income for state income tax if he/she fails to provide a valid tax-identification number.

•State authorities to enforce federal immigration law under agreement with U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

•Applicants for federal, state and local public benefits (excluding emergency services) to provide proof of immigration status as a condition of eligibility.


Colorado
Ten bills became law after a 2006 special session, including:

•Employers to verify workers' employment eligibility, check for falsifications and be subject to random audits.

•Local governments prohibited from issuing licenses, permits or any other similar authorization to undocumented immigrants.

•People older than 18 to prove lawful presence to receive certain public benefits.

Colorado voters also approved:

•Referendum H, which prohibits Colorado employers from deducting wages paid to unauthorized workers as a business expense.

•Referendum K, which requires Colorado to sue the federal government to demand enforcement of existing federal immigration laws.


Arizona
Arizona voters passed four propositions:

•"English only"

•Bail to be denied for any serious felony offense if the accused entered or remained in the U.S. illegally.

•Any person in the state in violation of federal immigration law prohibited from receiving punitive damages in a civil lawsuit.

•Anyone without lawful immigration status ineligible for tuition rates, grants, scholarship aid and financial aid otherwise available to in-state students.

Note: Arizona's voters passed a 2004 proposition requiring that applicants for certain public benefits be verified as legal residents of the U.S. and requiring state and local agencies to report to federal immigration authorities anyone who could not prove his or her legal status. The Arizona attorney general effectively gutted the proposition when he ruled its restrictions applied to only five state benefits. But it was the first major state action of its kind. Virginia's legislature passed a law in 2005 that prohibits unauthorized immigrants from receiving state or local public benefits.

Source: National Immigration Law Center
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma doesn't have much of a problem with illegal immigration in the grand scheme of things.

The state's undocumented population is estimated at 75,000 or fewer, a drop in the bucket compared with the approximately 1.5 million living in neighboring Texas.

But Oklahoma, reacting to the rapid growth of that population and fears for the future, is about to pass one of the nation's broadest state laws restricting illegal immigrants. The bill aims to cut off jobs and benefits for illegal immigrants and permit state and local law enforcement to detain them solely for their presence in the United States.

Once the House approves revisions added by the Senate, the bill is headed for the desk of Democratic Gov. Brad Henry. Henry calls illegal immigration a federal problem but has not signaled whether he will sign or veto the bill.

State Rep. Randy Terrill, a Republican from Moore, Okla., wrote the bill with help from the same anti-illegal-immigration groups that helped frame similar laws passed last year in Georgia and Colorado.

The bill's various requirements to screen workers for their immigration status would widely affect Oklahoma employers. Firing a legal employee while retaining an illegal immigrant in the same position would subject the employer to a discrimination suit by the legal employee.


Criminal penalties
The bill calls for criminal penalties for people who knowingly harbor or transport illegal immigrants, restricts access to identification such as driver's licenses and denies government benefits to illegal immigrants except in medical emergencies. And it expands the authority of state and local police agencies to enforce federal immigration law and deny bail to illegal immigrants arrested on felony or DWI charges.

"I think this bill is all but sitting on the governor's desk," Terrill said last week, moments after his bill passed the Senate. "I think the governor will veto this bill at his own political peril."

Because the bill cleared both legislative chambers by overwhelming margins, Terrill is convinced the Legislature could override a Henry veto.

Opponents charge that Terrill is riding the issue for purely political reasons. State Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre, a Tulsa Democrat, lumped many of Terrill's Senate supporters into the same category as she argued against the bill she said would impose costly but ineffective mandates.

"I understand those who want to be tough for the next election cycle," she said. "This is something you can use for that."


A top concern
Terrill says he's responding to the concerns of his constituents and that though Oklahoma's problems may be small now, he's wary of the future. Oklahoma voters have been consistently putting illegal immigration near the top of the list of their concerns in recent polling, he said.

"We've been watching what illegal immigration has done to California, Arizona and Texas," Terrill said. "We don't want that to happen here."

At the Latino Community Development Agency, on Oklahoma City's increasingly Hispanic southwest side, Executive Director Patricia Fennell is frustrated.

"The idea for passing this bill is that the undocumented were costing the state millions in public services," said Fennell. "That's a humongous piece of misinformation — the undocumented do not collect public services."

A state task force examining the illegal immigrant population recently reported that 99 percent of state residents receiving a child care subsidy, food stamps, Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are citizens. The task force also found that Oklahoma spent $7.8 million on emergency health needs for illegal immigrants in 2005, services required by federal law.

Foreigners will fear sending their children to school under the new law, Fennell said, and be afraid to seek health care.

"You could see outbreaks of diseases," she warned.


State help needed
But Democratic Sen. Kenneth Corn, a bill co-sponsor from Howe, Okla., said the state needs to fill in enforcement gaps for the federal government.

"How many of you have tried to call (federal immigration officers) for anything?" Corn asked fellow senators as he argued for the bill last week. "They are almost nonresponsive they are so undermanned. If we wait on the federal government, it will only get worse."

In the small community of Sulphur, about halfway between Oklahoma City and the Red River border with Texas, Billy Cook found out the hard way that there are enough Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to cut in half the production at his saddle and harness-making shop.

When ICE agents raided the shop in August, they took 51 of his employees — about half his work force — away in plastic handcuffs and deported most to Mexico.

Now, he said, he can't keep a new, nonimmigrant employee on the job for more than a few days or weeks. "They don't want to work," he said

kim.cobb@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4738487.html

Now, he said, he can't keep a new, nonimmigrant employee on the job for more than a few days or weeks. "They don't want to work," he said

That's because Billy Cook doesn't want to pay them a living wage. He can't expect to work American citizens at an illegal worker wage. He's just sticking his head in the sand about all of this.