OKPOLICY.ORG
When lawmakers go to the Capitol, they’re supposed to put their constituents first and work to improve their lives. However, this year, lawmakers passed or supported legislation that will directly harm Oklahomans, regardless of their immigration status. Senate Bill 1633 will make college prohibitively expensive for undocumented Oklahoma students and worsen the state’s workforce shortage. The governor’s executive order on public benefit verification will scare families away from applying for assistance they are legally allowed to receive. Measures such as these did not address critical state needs but instead attempted to cash in on anti-immigrant rhetoric to score political points for the election among certain groups. Oklahoma is stronger when everyone – especially our elected officials – recognizes that immigrants are Oklahomans and vital to our community and economy. The policies they passed this year will prove detrimental to current and future generations of Oklahomans.
Scaring families away from food assistance and health care helps no one
Two of the most concerning bills this year were House Bill 4422 and HB 4423 by House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. Together, these pieces of legislation would have mandated the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the Oklahoma Health Care Authority to use the federal SAVE database to check the immigration status of Oklahomans applying for programs that help families afford groceries, provide temporary cash assistance to families with children, and provide low-cost health coverage. The SAVE system has proven to be an unfit database for verifying citizenship or immigration status. As a result, it could mistakenly identify someone as possibly being in the U.S. unlawfully and trigger the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office to report them to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Anti-immigrant policies such as these have a proven track record of dissuading qualified immigrant families from applying for benefits, even if it is for their U.S. citizen children. Undocumented parents are less likely to apply for food or medical assistance their children may need and are legally allowed to receive. This reluctance is due to the risk of being deported and separated from their children. Research shows Oklahoma has one of the nation’s highest rates of citizen children with a parent who has been detained, meaning that these fears aren’t unfounded. Legislative concerns about the bills’ impact on children and pregnant mothers are part of the reason the bills died earlier this session, but their policies became law anyway through an unexpected executive order that Gov. Kevin Stitt signed in early May.
By circumventing the legislative process and passing the policies via an executive order, the governor has directed state agencies to implement the new rules regardless of the concerns about how it will impact children and parents. While it is unclear when the agencies will publish the rule and open the policy to public comment, past research makes clear that entangling the state’s public safety net with federal immigration enforcement efforts will dissuade people from accessing the benefits they are lawfully entitled to. As a result, it will harm thousands of citizen children.
Future generations of Oklahoma students are effectively barred from higher education
In addition to pushing families away from accessing the public safety net, lawmakers also moved to keep certain Oklahoma students from attending college. For almost 20 years, the state allowed Oklahoma high school graduates, including undocumented students, to attend college at in-state tuition rates, but a federal judge’s decision last year put that law on hold. SB 1633 by Sen. Brenda Stanley, R-Oklahoma City, codified the federal judge’s decision into state law and permanently bars undocumented Oklahomans from receiving resident tuition rates.
Out-of-state tuition rates are more than double in-state tuition rates, which will effectively prevent hundreds of qualified students from attending college in the state they call home, including current and future generations of students. Bills such as this send a clear message that not all Oklahoma students should be able to go to college. At a time when Oklahoma employers are clamoring to strengthen the state’s workforce, lawmakers should be working to increase access to higher education for every Oklahoma high school graduate instead of arbitrarily locking students out of college because of their immigration status.
Anti-immigrant policies undermine Oklahoma’s future
The new laws passed this year will hurt Oklahomans by using the threat of deportation to scare families away from getting food and medical help for their children. These laws also take away some students’ chance to get a better education and improve their lives. Mixed-status families will find themselves choosing between getting access to health care or risking being separated from their loved ones. Students who grew up in Oklahoma may move out of state to find a more affordable college, meaning Oklahoma’s workforce shortage will continue to worsen.
Simply put, none of the immigration policies passed this year will improve the lives of Oklahomans. These new rules will hurt everyone, not just immigrants. For example, a young U.S. citizen might not get SoonerCare because their family is afraid to apply for help. Older people may not be able to find a doctor because there are not enough college graduates in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has tried the punitive strategy over and over again each legislative session, and all it has done is create fear in our communities. It is time we focus on passing productive, forward looking legislation that actually helps Oklahomans.
