April 20th, Governor Stitt played at giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
On the one hand, Governor Stitt signed ‘controversial’ ‘immigration’ bill HB4156; a solid bill that provides deportation and fines and/or jail time for those found to commit ‘impermissible occupation’, defined thusly
“A person commits an impermissible occupation if the person is an alien and willfully and without permission enters and remains in the State of Oklahoma without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.”
All Senate Republicans voted for the bill as did all Republicans of the House. Democrats voted in blocks against the bill in both chambers.
While many ‘press’ headlines center around the word ‘controversial’, only one headline contained the fact that an Executive Order on immigration was signed by the Governor on the same day as his signature was inked to the bill.
During a press conference of the signing, the Governor announced the task force, saying, “Our hands have been forced by the unprecedented border security crisis that has seen more than 52,000 Chinese Nationals, along with terror organizations, illegally infiltrate and wreak havoc on our great nation and state,” he says. “Simply put, we will not tolerate threats to our communities and we will not become home to sanctuary cities.”
So this bill is about Chinese nationals?
Since Oklahoma passed a state question deciding the use of medical marijuana in 2018, there has been a steady rise in violent crime in once idyllic rural countrysides thanks to Chinese national-run marijuana grows. This has largely stemmed from the fact that the Oklahoma legislature not only got off flat-footed on the creation of laws to regulate the ‘medical’ marijuana industry after the question was passed, but then found themselves apparently unprepared to regulate the NEW state agency they created to regulate the industry.
Sadly, and thanks mainly to these factors, Oklahoma is now #1 in illegal importation of marijuana – GO SOONERS!
Reading the Executive Order signed directly after the bill, is instructive. Here are the first two whereas’:
Note the wording in the second paragraph, “…honest, hardworking Hispanic or OTHER international migrant populations here…”. How is anyone here in the state illegally, honest. This begs many questions then. Are shoplifters honest? What about murderers?
The EO then goes on to blame the Biden administration for not issuing VISAs or permits (how can he be blamed when he’s allowing millions of people to flood the borders of this nation illegally – there’s no possible way to keep up with the backlog that kind of volume of humanity would generate) to those immigrants who have “long filled gaps in Oklahoma’s workforce”.
In fact, it’s almost as though the EO says, ‘We have a bunch of Chinese Nationals who are causing crime in Oklahoma, so we’re going to get these people out of the state, but everyone else here illegally is honestly working to fill jobs too good for legal Oklahomans and we need them to stay, so we’re going to figure out a way to make that happen’.
Here is what the Task Force is assigned to do.
Who will serve ON the Task Force?
Look at #5. Is Oklahoma a border state? What about an international airline hub? No? Why then is there a Mexican Consul located in Oklahoma?
According to the largest post to the Oklahoma Mexican Consul page on the Mexican Consulate website, the Oklahoma Consul can help to REGISTER Hispanics to VOTE. As to what the Twitter page for the Oklahoma Mexican Consul says, one wouldn’t know unless one was fluent in Spanish.
According to the Oklahoman, the Mexican Consul was opened last year (5.20.23), to provide people with their “Mexican passports, birth certificates and other government-issued documents” in order to keep them from having to journey to Little Rock, AK, Kansas City, MO, or Dallas, TX – the latter of which is a four hour drive from Oklahoma City.
HB4156 is being lauded among Conservatives as helping to stem the tide of illegal immigration in Oklahoma, but clearly, that’s not the bottom line. If the bill is going to be signed and touted as ‘controversial’ yet the Governor goes on to sign an EO for a task force to make ‘honestly’ illegal aliens, legal, what exactly does the bill mean then?
No, Oklahomans do not want high crime rates – certainly not drug trafficking crime which tends to be graphically violent – but Chinese nationals are not the only ones here in Oklahoma committing drug crimes.
In January, Representative Justin Humphrey – a former law enforcement officer with years of experience in drug court – filed HB3133 to have drug trafficking become an act of terrorism. This bill blew up in the media, but not for the terrorism designation for drug trafficking. It blew up because he identified two Mexican cartels – the Sinola and New Age – as primarily trafficking in fentanyl, a drug responsible for many tens of thousands of deaths across the US and a skyrocketing number in Oklahoma according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
Because Humphrey also used the word ‘Hispanic’ in the bill, a firestorm ensued in which Humphrey was accused of racism. This prompted him to comment, “I believe these continual accusations of racism present an indisputable danger to America freedom and democracy.” (Apparently, the Legislature is aware of this issue and did add fentanyl to the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act this year through SB1280 – a bill that doesn’t contain the word ‘Hispanic’.)
In fact, the Governor’s EO goes out of its way to eliminate any appearance at all of considering a member of the Hispanic population as here NOT ‘honestly’.
Biden won 63% of the Latino vote in 2020 and is now appealing again to Latino voters by saying that they are the reason he won the election against President Donald Trump. According to Oklahoma Watch, Hispanic voters outvoted Black and Asian voters in the 2022 Oklahoma mid-terms by a large margin.
In fact, the RNC helped open an Hispanic Community Center in south OKC, where former Oklahoma Republican Committeewoman, Pam Pollard said they were “also going to be doing voter registration”. Clearly, the Latino vote is important and catering to that vote is something the Oklahoma GOP hopes to do.
Last year, Oklahoma Senator Michael Brooks (D), an Hispanic, proposed a bill to allow illegal immigrants to gain state driver’s licenses. The only thing an illegal person here in Oklahoma had to do to obtain a DL was show that they had been paying their taxes. This ignited a firestorm among Oklahoma citizens who believed that such cards could be used to allow the owner to vote illegally.
So it would seem that politics is out in full force when looking at the scope of HB4156. After all, our Governor is nothing if not a ‘workforce’ governor who sees it as his job to “make Oklahoma the state where it’s easiest to start and grow a business’. Yes, government MUST get out of the way to do that, but that will absolutely not happen by making lawlessness legal and more efficient.
President Biden will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the worst presidents in all American history – especially on immigration. If the President won’t act to stem the tide of people illegally entering the United States, Oklahoma, should act in its own best interest to protect its citizens. It should secure its own borders from those wishing to enter illegally, whether they bring crime and brutality, OR NOT.
Just like President Biden’s student loan bailout is a slap in the face to all the hardworking young people who have worked hard to pay their way through colleges and universities, ANY attempt to give people who come to Oklahoma illegally an end around the immigration system is a slap in the face to those who have come here the right way – the HARD way – the EXPENSIVE way – the way that includes NATURALIZATION.
Today in Oklahoma, rather than a tapestry of Oklahomans of different international backgrounds united together under the Oklahoma flag, we have different areas of our cities and towns devoted to Hispanic populations, or Asian populations, or Islamic populations (including taxpayer sponsored Madrasas) – many of whom came to Oklahoma but can barely speak a word of English.
To this end, Oklahoma has an entire division of the State Department of Education – the Office of English Language Proficiency – which is allocated $1392 for each pupil to be instructed in reading, writing and understanding of the English language.
Cynically, maybe this is the reason the Superintendent of one of the largest Hispanic population schools in Oklahoma is so annoyed about HB4156. Mr. Brewster’s X feed is full of similar posts. Is there a reason that a taxpayer funded Superintendent shouldn’t be fired for advocating lawlessness? Or is lawlessness just really fine anymore – especially if it occurs in the Hispanic population?
Governor Stitt is a professing Christian. Just a basic reading of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible would confirm that Jewish communities did not welcome ‘outsiders’. Yes, they were to be kind to those who lived among them, but they were not to intermarry, or allow others outside their faith to serve in their governments or in their Temples. Why? Because when they let down their guard and assimilated those of other faiths, their communities lost their identity in their God and quickly became affiliated with those of the outsiders.
Thanks in large part to unchecked immigration at the federal level, this country is completely different in values today, including that of national pride, than even during the 1960’s with all its generational upheaval. One has only to look at the demonstrations on college campuses in favor of Hamas – a known terrorist organization – to see that statement as absolute truth.
Should Oklahoma be a state closed to immigration? Of course not. Our country has been richer for the many legal immigrants it has welcomed from across the world over its several hundred years, as is our state. However, Identifying people here in Oklahoma illegally as ‘honest’ is wrong and on the very dangerous downhill side of a very slippery slope.
Allowing Oklahoma to develop its own system for vetting and assimilating people into the state because ‘we need workers’, or because they are already here working, is wrong.
In Biden’s economy, it may be hard for many to feed their families. Are we going to allow these families to steal food from grocery stores because Biden won’t do anything about inflation except print more money? Biden is paying off student loans. Because of this, are we to allow every student who wants to attend a school of higher learning for free to do so?
Actions have consequences and allowing lawlessness – especially lawlessness based on identity – has arguably the most far-reaching and frightening of all to the safety and security of ALL Oklahomans. The bill passed by Oklahomans to protect Oklahomans from unchecked illegal immigration and signed by Governor Stitt is a good bill. The Governor shouldn’t even consider providing an end-around.
