Oklahoma Senate OKs bill targeting illegal immigrants

[The Northerner]

Source: Reuters

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – The Oklahoma Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would create criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants who work in Oklahoma and those who smuggle them into the state.

It would also give police officers more authority to question citizenship status of suspects.

The bill, approved by a 37-8 vote, originated in the Oklahoma House and underwent revisions in the Senate. The two chambers must reconcile differences in the bill before it can go to Governor Mary Fallin. Senators faced a deadline on Thursday to pass bills that originate in the House.

Oklahoma is one of several states -- including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah -- where Republicans are pushing immigration measures reminiscent of the one that became law in Arizona a year ago. The Arizona law required police to investigate the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the country illegally.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110428/pl_nm/us_immigration_oklahoma

[bongbong]

1. Penalty for the employers?

I wonder if there is any penalty for the employers of said "undocumented immigrants" in this?

If there was such a clause, I'm guessing the fine print would include "No penalties shall be assessed if you are a rich white businessman."

[stubtoe]

3. Special dispensation for agriculture?

It will be interesting to see how this plays with the agricultural sector. They tend to be very Republican but have a vested interest in cheap undocumented labor.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

12. Cheap undocumented labor that they bus in!

What will they do.....

[alp227]

8. +1000

[tolucano]

10. How can they charge the companies?

I live in Mexico, have lived in southern california, eastern oklahoma and Northern mexico. I know first hand the oklahoma and arkansas areas have a lot of food processing plants and the majority of people that work in these are illegals with stolen documents that are easily purchased (as I say I know first hand). The papers are legal for someone else and the companies can not catch this, they are not held liable because they do not knowing hire illegals. Tyson, allen canning, cargil, ok foods, whirlpool in fort smith, etc., etc. You can not walk in and get hired as an illegal. I knew this was coming a long time ago, when it is done this way there is no way to hold anyone responisble except the employee. If fingerprints was attached to the social security number the company could be held responsible, otherwise they can only verify the papers are legal...not that the person presenting them actually belongs to them.

It makes me very mad when people think those of us that are there illegally only was dishes or cut grass. This is a very small percentage, check the plants. By far most are working in plant's but with someone elses papers. If you want to help us then help us to work legal, the system is so that we work with someone both else's papers and both us and the people that own the papers get problems.

I can tell you a lot about how things work there with us.

[tolucano]

11. It's too easy for both sides to point fingers

than to try and fix things. Just acting like you care makes you feel good I guess.

[primavera]

13. +1

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[tolucano]

16. Thank you primavera.

I think most people there do not really know how it works for these people. I wish I could tell everyone and then it might change.

[primavera]

14. Enforcement is a thorny area

Some employers are the rich, white businessmen of whom you speak. A lot, though, are farmers trying to keep costs down so that they can remain competitive in the grocery stores with imports from underdeveloped nations. Those guys aren't receiving billion dollar bonus checks like Wall Street is; there's not a lot of fat in their budget to begin with. Labor is the largest cost of doing business in agriculture, so, if you increase labor costs, you'll have to increase prices to make up for it. If the average American goes into a grocery store and can buy Chilean tomatoes for $3/lb or US grown tomatoes for $6/lb, which do you think they'll choose? If nobody is willing to pay $6/lb for US grown tomatoes, how long will the farmer stay in business?

As another poster pointed out, it can also be difficult for employers to know who is authorized to work and who is not. Many undocumented noncitizens use borrowed or fake documents. If someone presents you with what appears on its face to be a valid document and you refuse to hire them because you suspect that they may be an undocumented alien, you can be sued for discriminatory employment practices. If you do hire them and they turn out to no have valid work authorization, you're subject to sanctions from ICE for having hired an undocumented worker. It can be a difficult spot to be in.

[tolucano]

15. You are right, it's a hard spot.

The only thing about fake documents though is that they do not work. They must already belong to someone else legally before they can be used. In areas such as I lived selling stolen social security documents is big business, thousands of dollars each. Most belong to small children, a lot stolen from puerto rico. I had a friend from mexico that was killed and they were going to ship his body to puerto rico where his papers were from. One thing to remember is that fake papers do not exist, they could not even get hired. They must be legal social security numbers. This things are well known, people go there with money to buy the papers or you can not get a good job. If you have family there they already buy them for you.

Once you buy these papers you can vote, get a drivers license, get food stamps and many things. I wish things were different where we could work there legal. It's hard when you and your wife both have different names. The insurance from the job will not pay for the children being born if you want them to have their real names on the birth papers. It is really bad, but the money is worth it to many. I will not be going back because the narcos control all if the illegal border crossings. They rape the women, beat the men. It is hard.

[AlbertCat]

2. Has the Oklahoma Senate passed any bills.....

.... that actually DO ANYTHING to improve the lives of the citizenry of OK?

Jess askin'....

[SoapBox]

4. Hate, Hate, Hate...seems to be what OK is all about...

...at least many of their "elected" officials.

So...WHAT ABOUT JOBS in your desert-dust-bowl of a state?

[vduhr]

5. The effect of this hate mongering...

is showing up everywhere, and ironically in the State that I live, which is predominently Hispanic due to the history of the State being, at one time, part of Mexico, and it's invasion of Spanish explorers (many Native-Americans even have Hispanic last names). A couple of weeks ago, there was a news report about, sadly, a boyfriend who had killed his girlfriend's child. The boyfriend has a Hispanic last name, which is not uncommon at all here. One of the comments to the article blamed not closing our borders. When I asked that particular person what that had to do with the crime (BTW, the article mention nothing about the boyfriend's citizenship status), the responses I got from another person was that it "probably had a lot to do with it".

[OKNancy]

6. Hey, they legislature sucks and there are a lot of knuckldraggers here

but 500,000 Oklahomans voted for Obama...and most of Oklahoma is pretty darn green and lush.
It kind of shows a tad bit of ignorance to call the whole state a desert-dust-bowl.

[a la izquierda]

7. Thank you!

Eastern Oklahoma is gorgeous and I'm going to miss it when I leave. I'd rather live here where I can breathe without choking than live in expensive, crowded southern California (which is where I moved to OK from).
Yeah, we have idiot politicians, but last time I checked, nearly every state does.

[No Elephants]

9. What part of "uniform" and "supreme" do bigots not understand?