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Fence won’t work, Mexico has shovels.

Oklahoma sees no signs of mass exodus

BY CHRISTINA M. WOODS
The Wichita Eagle

G. Marc Benavidez/The Wichita Ea
Father Anthony Taylor, a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Oklahoma City is an advocated for immigrant human rights .

OKLAHOMA CITY – Beyond the Oklahoma River rest block after city block of Hispanic neighborhoods. Spanish words are splashed on storefront signs and billboards.

Much of the fear that gripped these neighborhoods in the fall, when the state enacted some of the toughest immigration reforms in the country, has subsided over time, residents say. The roundups and stings that some envisioned haven’t come to pass.

Still, a 40-year-old plumber, here illegally, said he feels like he’s “living in a jail,” and a 26-year-old waitress said she has nightmares about being deported.
Other Oklahomans, such as minister Charlie Meadows, said the immigration law is effectively addressing what he calls an “invasion of illegal aliens.”

In Tulsa, more than 600 illegal immigrants arrested on other charges have been taken into federal immigration custody.

Oklahoma’s crackdown — and the fear that illegal immigrants would flee to Kansas — prompted the Kansas Legislature to debate immigration reform bills this session.

The Kansas House and Senate gutted their original versions, which more closely resembled Oklahoma’s.
Instead, lawmakers passed weaker bills last week that largely target employment identity fraud and human trafficking. The House version would require businesses to use the federal e-Verify system by 2011 to check employee identification.

Oklahoma Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, who sponsored that state’s immigration law, advises Kansans who want the state to crack down on illegal immigration to “be confident that their position is right… and don’t be deterred by the pro-illegal-alien lobby.”

Oklahoma law’s impact
The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 is the state’s answer to what some lawmakers see as the federal government’s inaction on illegal immigration.
It:
• Requires verification of workers’ legal status
• Mandates law-enforcement checks into the citizenship status of people arrested and jailed on felony charges or on charges of driving under the influence

• Makes it illegal for anyone to transport or house someone who is in the country illegally.
The law has been phased in since November.
Terrill said the law is good, but he wants its provisions to go farther. Some of the legislation he’s considering would strip the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants of automatic citizenship and would make English the state’s official language.

Meadows, chairman of the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee, which supported the law, said it is working as intended.

Recent immigrants who don’t assimilate, he said, are a national threat.

“They’re coming here to access our prosperity, bringing their culture with them and setting up a sub-culture within this nation,” he said. “I call that the balkanization of America. It’s very divisive.”

a
No hard evidence
It is too early to see statistical evidence of the law’s impact. The state hasn’t released audits or prepared reports. But a private economic impact study released Tuesday estimated Oklahoma’s economic output could be slashed by $1.8 billion initially if 50,000 of the state’s foreign-born workers were to flee because of the law.

The Oklahoma Bankers Association, which hasn’t taken a position on the law, financed the study.

Wagner, the restaurant owner, said he had expected about a 10 percent loss in his work force when the law passed.

Instead, it has been stable.

Wagner said he will be in compliance with the law by July 1, when businesses have to verify employees’ documents. He plans to have a third-party company oversee the verification.

Meanwhile, public and private institutions are just beginning to assess the law’s impact.
The state’s law enforcement agencies have taken different approaches to implementing its provisions.

The Oklahoma City Police Department has responded to a handful of illegal-immigration complaints, said spokesman Sgt. Paco Balderrama. In accordance with the law, it also checked the immigration status of about 100 suspects arrested on DUI or felony charges.

“What we call ‘bias-based policing’ is against our policy, so we have to be careful with that,” Balderrama said. “We can’t pull people over simply because they’re illegal…. We want to be in compliance with this law, but at the same time balance public trust.”

In Tulsa County, 28 sheriff’s officers have been trained to investigate, arrest and detain immigrants who may have violated federal immigration law. The department requested the training before the state’s immigration revisions took effect.

“We’re not out here doing random checks, roundups or going to job sites,” said Sgt. Shannon Clark. “We’re dealing with the criminal aspect of the community.”

That means if people are arrested — no matter their ethnic or racial background — the department checks their immigration status.

The department also seeks specific immigrants who have been deported and are back in the United States illegally, Clark said.

Since September, 602 illegal immigrants have been taken into federal custody from Tulsa’s jail, the department said.

Illegal immigrants processed at the jail have come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Vietnam, Yemen, Peru and Kazakhstan.

Tulsa’s sheriff’s department is the only law enforcement agency in Oklahoma to undergo federal immigration enforcement training, said Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
No law enforcement agencies in Kansas have requested or undergone similar training, Rusnok said.

Little flight

As for migration from Oklahoma City, some say fears of a mass exodus may be overblown.

Neither the public school district nor the largely Hispanic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has seen sizable drops in enrollment or membership.

The Rev. Anthony Taylor, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church and archdiocese chairman of the council of priests, said several of the parish’s roughly 2,000 families have moved to Texas or northern Arkansas.

“More often,” he said, “people are getting their affairs in order. If they do have to leave, they’ll be better prepared to do so.”

Taylor has witnessed Oklahoma City’s demographic shift over the years as it played out in Sacred Heart’s pews.

In 1980, Sacred Heart had four weekend Masses, all held in English, Taylor said.
In 2006, the city’s Hispanic population was nearly 103,700 — up from nearly 73,000 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Now, the church has nine Masses on the weekend; only one is entirely in English.

“We’ve tried to make the church be a safe place for people,” Taylor said. “They can feel at home. They’re wanted and welcome here.
“Right now, they’re feeling rejected.”

Personal stories
In the neighborhoods beyond the Oklahoma River, personal stories illustrate how the law plays out day to day.

Jose, a plumber, said he moved to the United States

illegally

in 1985 for work. He bounced between California andMexico before joining his sister, a U.S. citizen, in Oklahoma City in the early ’90s.
The family has hired an immigration lawyer, who tells Jose it may take eight to 12 years to get a permanent resident card.

Jose said he hopes the next president will provide a path to citizenship for immigrants like him.
“It’s a hard situation,” he said. “I wish they would just do something. It feels like we’re living in a jail.”

A 26-year-old waitress who asked that she not be identified said she risks staying here for her U.S.-born daughter, who is a citizen. “I live for her. That’s it,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons why I stay here.”

Her voice shakes as she talks about trying to live within the law.

She never speeds when
driving, she said.

She prays for a change.
If she is deported, she said she wants to work at an airport in Mexico where she can use her bilingual skills instead of returning to service work.
She slips into her native tongue and lifts her hands. “I know how to write and talk in English,” she says. “If I have to go back, I’m not just going with these.”

Legal challenges

If Kansas were to implement legislation similar to Oklahoma’s, it might find the law challenged.

Business associations,
including the

U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

have challenged the Oklahoma law’s employer verification provision in court.

Religious groups,

including the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, refuse to comply with the law on moral grounds.

State-level immigration revisions can vary widely.

A federal district court upheld a law in Arizona that denied or suspended business licenses for employers that failed to use e-Verify. But a federal district court overturned a similar law in Hazleton, Pa.

Because judges’ interpretations differ, legal challenges may not bring clarity, said Rodney Hero, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame and a visiting scholar at Princeton University.

“Ideally, one would prefer this be addressed through legislation rather than through courts… because courts are there to apply laws rather than make laws,” he said.

Immigration remains a potent political issue. Wagner, the restaurant owner, said he found several lawmakers who said they didn’t want to vote against an immigration bill because they feared losing political clout.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, you did this, you voted for it just because of the game,’ ” Wagner said.
Terrill, the Oklahoma lawmaker, said he’s confident his “legislative baby” will prevail.

“It has always been the states that have stepped in to fill policy voids that have been left by the federal government, whether it was welfare reform in the mid- to late ’90s or whether it’s immigration reform in 2007 and 2008,” he said.

“I would submit to you, history is merely repeating itself, and it’s federalism in action.”
But Lopez, the businessman, said he thinks that states should consider “the collateral damage that occurs in the meantime” when states pass laws meant to force the federal government to act.
Lopez’s advice to Kansas reflects an old carpenter’s rule: Measure twice and cut once.
“You need to study it extra hard before you move because if you haven’t measured the impact initially,” he said, “you’re going to have to address it at least twice.”

“Tanker Todd” has no credibility in Kansas anymore. He is a Bush Co. hack, and has never had an original thought in his life. Look in the dictionary under “useless” and there is his beaming mug.

Law of unintended consequences: It is said that before the Clinton administration made illegal border crossing harder by stepping up security, workers would come in to work for awhile (seasonal workers) and then go back home to be wit their families.

Since each border crossing is riskier, the workers decide it is safer to just stay in the US all year.

Nothing like trying to get our focus back on the illegals to divert attention from his inability to secure the tanker deal and his lack of compassion for poor children whose parents can’t afford health care. The next thing you know he’ll be railing about gun rights again.

“Fence won’t work, Mexico has shovels.”

Comments such as the above are typical from those opposed to a border fence. They will resort to any measure, to sway the public into believing border security can NOT work.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Where new modern fences and electronic security measures have been adopted – the number of illegals trying to cross borders has dropped significantly.

One need only look at the Berlin Wall or the DMZ between N/S Korea to know that border security IS possible and highly effective.

No, we don’t need land mines and machine guns. We have the technology to protect our border with physical measures – but these measures must be supported by an active force of border patrol agents. The electronic measures, coupled with a new fence – will allow for more efficient use of the human resources protecting our borders.

This, along with special jails for business’ which hire illegal criminals (and Kansas republican supporters), would greatly reduce the influx of illegal criminals.

Ladders and shovels comments reflect the humor of those opposed to border protection, yet have no basis in fact. Sure, a few will always make it through. But tigher security, will discourage the regular caravans of buses departing north from Mexican border cities.

BTW, I read somewhere that the EPA is considering the impact on the declining native American Buzzard populations and illegal crossings.

Dont paint me as against border security. It’s the damn GUNS that made the Berlin Wall work. Lots of folks got over, under or around the wall only to be killed in the “clear area” on the other side. Good shots those rooskies and chermans.

Is that what you want?

To quote Micheal Moore, “dude, where’s my country?”

One can be for increased security without being for a dumb ass wall that will be nothing but a boondoggle, again, for bushco cronies like halliburton.

Take the wall money and invest in REAL security. Not some expensive symbol of such.

If you imagine E. and W. Berlin as each a square, the two cities were joined by one common side. If you look at the wall, it goes nearly completely around west berlin. How much is a fence across Mexico, Canada, and both coasts going to cost? And people DID get through the Berlin wall. Not many, but, I guess a whole lot more would have if only a 50 foot section had been built.

I believe most illegal aliens are people that came here on a visa and just decided not to go back.

The fundamental source of the problem is American greed.

Any company or person found to be employing illegal immigrants should have all of their assets seized, confiscated, and auctioned off by the government. This will eliminate what is drawing the illegals here.

Put up a fence, and they’ll decide it’s not worth the effort to try and sneak back!

Of course we may not want to pay the expense of building a wall on the northern border. With the value of the US Dollar, we may have some of us immigrating north.

We’ll probably have Mexicans making the U.S. their retirement destination so they can live comfortably on their pesos.

SheHair writes, I don’t always agree with him but he is a world better than most of the spineless wonders in Washington.

Really?

His spine must be made out of Bush then, because he votes however Bush tells him too . . .

Cap’n while I don’t quite agree with “SheHair writes, I don’t always agree with him but he is a world better than most of the spineless wonders in Washington”, you have to admit, while not better, he’s really not any or much worse.

What’s that y’say, KFG? NO MORE INCUMBENTS??? Ok, I hear ya.

Maybe they can build a fence which allows one way movement. We bought some mousetraps like that. The mouse sneaks in to get the bait – but cannot get back out.

Yeah, a semi-permeable membrane. Only allows US citizens through.

Most of the illegal immigrants in this country crossed the border legally then let their visas expire. How is a fence supposed to stop that? Tiahrt proves he’s an idiot again. It’s no surprise that there were no plans to build a fence in a certain area of Texas where the land is owned by a major Bush donor.

“How is a fence supposed to stop that?”

It won’t. That’s a horse of a different color.

What we DO know is that roughly between 200,000 and 400,000 thousand are crossing illegally into the US every year.

We do know that “the Department of Homeland Security, continuing to enforce what it calls a “strict policy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing” illegal immigrants, deported a record number of those caught on the nation’s borders last year — more than 280,000 in fiscal year 2007.”

That’s enough for a fence for me.

Paul – I think one thing you and I would agree on in what should be done to those coyotes.

If you are going to argue against building a fence simply because there are ways around it, then why do we do anything at all?

A fence is not supposed to be the end all solution nor is it supposed to stop all illegal immigration.

A fence would be one part of the solution, an imposing impediment which would slow them down, stop some, or at the very least make it much more difficult to get across the border.

I agree, Nate. And the ones that fence would thwart, we don’t want them anyway.

While in Mexico my ex showed me the original border fence. It was about eight feet high and made of flimsy sheet metal. She said that was all that was needed because, before NAFTA, people had plenty of work and were making a good living and didn’t need to cross over.

Thanks to the Reagan policy to destroy foreign economies another fence had to be made and shanty towns littered the border. Tiahrt’s solution is to build a third fence, that’s like telling a kid there are good cookies in the cookie jar but putting the jar higher up on the shelf as if he couldn’t get a chair to get at the jar. If he were allowed to make his own then he wouldn’t need to get someone else’s, but Reagan and years and years of Republican economic policies have put an end to that. Feel free to reference Confessions of an Economic Hitman to know the story.

You always hear about these vans that have an accident and eithere mexicans get killed that were riding in the back or they all scatter. Would a fence stop those that can afford to ride?

Okay, an idea:
Self-supporting guest worker program, with either the worker or the employer paying all guest worker paperwork costs. Strict enforcement of immigration laws, including major fines for businesses hiring workers without guest worker cards. Jail time for any worker abusing, or cheating the system. Illegal aliens caught will be dropped somewhere over their respective countries. Parachutes optional:-)

What? The parachutes weren’t optional?

I hear there are lots of Unemployed East German Border guards. We mighht get them to help.

You know Mary, your idea has alot of merit. The illegal problem, also the problem of the flood of documented workers is not going to be stopped or controlled by a fence, border guards, land mines, or anything else. If the American people truly want them stopped, the only way to do it is to make it unprofitable for American employers to hire them. And folks that just isn’t going to happen. Period! These folks are draining every resource that we have, crippling our health care system, filling our courts and jails, turning our school systems into a joke to accomodate the second language. There are very few positives to be said about the illegal invasion, but we still encourage them to come. So, maybe invading Mexico and turning it into our 51st. state has some merit. It would certainly make it alot easier for the drug runners. anyway, i am beginning to babble and I really dislike that. The illegal are here to stay and nothing short of an all out war against Mexico is going to change it.

Irony is most often lost on those who most need it.

I think if you are here iligale get out of here we do not want you. You get nothing from us. We worked hard to get where we are. go back change your own goverment. Do not come here and cry for more. get out for ever. You are the most hated people in the world. And you are all filthy take a bath. Haul your trash out not to the back yard. Not in the ditch. This is the USA abide by our rules or get the heck out. I do not care about you and will never. Do not ever ask me for anything you get nothing. So leave me alone go back you got all our jobs over there now you have to go back to work. Fools.