Probably Uncalled For...  

I'm surprised you haven't heard the squeals of outrage from where you are sitting at this very moment, whether it be your favorite chair, your desk at work, or outside messing up a perfectly good day by fiddling with your mobile web. Of course, if you live in Oklahoma, you can indeed hear the outrage, so it's pretty much a moot point if you're in Tulsa reading this article. At any rate, there has been plenty of outrage to spare since the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 took effect last November 1.

One of the nation's toughest laws dealing with illegal immigrants, the Act, or "1804," as it is more popularly known, affects the state in a variety of fashions. For law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma, 1804 allows the state to negotiate the ability of those agencies to enforce immigration law. I suppose it's a little late in the game to ask exactly why a state trooper or county sheriff couldn't enforce a law in the first place, but I'll take the positives as I can get them, in regards to this issue. In addition, 1804 prevents the adoption of so-called "sanctuary" policies that bar police from cooperating with immigration authorities. Not that I am a constitutional scholar, or anything like, but how is a local government allowed to prevent the police from dealing with a federal agency?

For businesses that employ illegal immigrants, life just got a little less convenient in Oklahoma. Illegal immigrants are no longer allowed to have driver's licenses or other forms of government identification. The effect is already noticeable in the state, as businesses have reported declining employee numbers and industries have experienced sales declines. The biggest changes, perhaps, is the new requirement for businesses and government agencies to cross-check hires to ensure they are legally eligible to work. If a business violates this, they would not get the contract with the agency. Personally, my favorite touch is the new rule allowing fired legal employees to sue their former employees if they retain illegal workers on the payroll. Then again, I suppose if a company insists on keeping illegal workers on the payroll in Oklahoma, given the new rules, then I would imagine liability not being an overwhelming concern.

And what of the illegal immigrant, our country's erstwhile guest of honor? For a person whom the Dallas Morning News named the 2007 Texan of the Year, just across the state line, things are not as pessimistically optimistic. For starters, transporting, concealing, harboring, or sheltering illegal immigrants was made a felony offense, as it should have been all along. In this overcomplicated world of intelligence, counter-intelligence, law enforcement, and security agencies, it seems amazing that transporting or otherwise assisting someone not allowed legally to be in the country is a misdemeanor most everywhere else in this country. If you think that seems a little melodramatic, take someone caught smuggling in people from Tijuana and someone caught smuggling people in from Afghanistan, and see who gets the misdemeanor and who gets made an example of.

You knew it was not going to be a complete cakewalk, right? Detractors have been many, including churches and business groups. Neighboring states to Oklahoma are noticing a rise in illegal immigrants coming from Oklahoma for health care, leading to an obvious increase in those states' spending. One of the main criticisms seems to be that removing the illegal immigrant thins out the workforce, creating competition for jobs, high turnaround on services, and forcing businesses to raise wages and prices.

Hard to be sympathetic. I mean, are those companies that dependent on an illegal labor pool that simply enforcing the law is a serious threat to their business? How many of these businesses receive corporate welfare of some form already? I know you have to walk before you can run, but how many crutches are you gonna claim you need just to stand on your own two feet? State Rep. Shane Jett (R), an opponent of 1804, envisions a program that would allow illegal immigrants to pay a fine and continue working (and paying taxes), exempt from 1804 regulations but not from existing federal law. Hold up a second. Allowing someone to pay some money, so they continue to do their thing, even if it's against the law? Sounds like either a protection racket or bribery to me.

Competition for jobs may drive increases in wages and prices, but it will also spur development, possibly in education. Education trends are tied to hot jobs, and hot jobs are the ones competed for, whether or not they are glamour details, because of the wages. At what point does buckling down, seeking new industry, and maybe working to prevent higher education from being a lifetime lesson in debt management work out to be a bad course of action for a government? Eliminating the eligibility for most social assistance to illegal immigrants will free up money to better provide care for those deserving, or to fund more ambitious social projects on down the road.

For all the good, bad, and ugly over 1804, the bottom line is the legislation will end up being a long-term win for the people of Oklahoma, and should be something more than just a handful of states are examining on their own. Once they realize the first step in addressing the problem is not simply ignoring it, the rest should not be rocket surgery.