RSSOklahoma’s crackdown on illegal immigration draws Texas lawmakers’ interest
Carolyn Hileman* | February 15, 2008
OKLAHOMA CITY – Welcome to the nation’s laboratory for a crackdown on illegal immigration. Last year, Oklahoma’s Legislature passed, by huge margins, the nation’s toughest law on illegal immigrants, making it a felony to harbor, transport, shelter or conceal undocumented immigrants.
This summer, the same law also will allow U.S. citizens to sue employers if they think they were fired in favor of illegal workers. Employers in the state say they already see the results: “A total lack of workers,” said Doug Forrest, a Tulsa site-preparation contractor and golf course builder. “This is potentially sending our state into a recession.”
Proponents of the law don’t see such economic harm.
Meanwhile, some Texas lawmakers are already promising bills that mirror Oklahoma’s House Bill 1804.
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, said the Oklahoma measure has proved that even as Congress deadlocks on immigration, a state can protect itself against what he calls threats to public health and safety posed by a porous border.
“You don’t have to round up 20 million illegal aliens,” Mr. Berman said. “Stop the two free benefits you’re giving them – free health care and a free education – and they’ll go back across the Rio Grande.”
Mr. Berman has introduced similar anti-illegal-immigration measures in the past but has been unsuccessful.
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2 Responses to “Oklahoma’s crackdown on illegal immigration draws Texas lawmakers’ interest”
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It’s funny the only people complaining about the damage to business are CEOs of areas that heavily employ illegal immigrants. It does not bother me one bit that the CEO of a construction company is not making as much money because he will have to pay middle class workers a fair wage.
The fairest wage is whatever the market will bear. If, after the illegals go home, the wage is the same then the American workers will have to accept it. A lot of these jobs are paying the illegals good money even by American standards for the type of labor they do (i.e. mindless work that almost anyone with an IQ over 10 could do).
Illegal immigration is not so much about wages as it is that there are simply not enough Americans willing to get up and do jobs that they think are beneath them. If Americans would stop whining and fill these jobs the employers would not feel the need to skirt the law.