By:
Guest
December 5, 2022 // Updated: December 5, 2022

This guest post was written by Michelle Dennison, Vice President of Policies and Prevention at the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic, and Julie Seward, the Oral Health Programs Manager at the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board.
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Oklahoma does…
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In October, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy was not legally adopted, leaving the future of more than half a million young people…
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Co-authors: Immigration Policy Analyst Gabriela Ramirez-Perez and Josie Phillips, former Policy Fellow
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Immigrants are an integral part of Oklahoma’s economy. They work in essential industries, create jobs by starting businesses, care for our aging population, and contribute…
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Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma has allowed more than 300,000 residents to enroll for health care, but almost 82,000 Oklahomans who are immigrants remain uninsured. Since the mid-1990s, many immigrants are either partially or entirely ineligible for federal public benefits programs,…
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It’s a fact of life that getting around in Oklahoma requires a driver’s license. Because immigrants in Oklahoma who are undocumented are barred from getting one, the lack of a license presents a major challenge for 85,000 Oklahomans to get…
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Legislative gaps in Oklahoma harm tenants, particularly households of color. The Oklahoma Residential Landlord Tenant Act (ORLTA), first adopted in 1978, needs to be updated to create equity.
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Immigrants have had to bear the pandemic without much federal aid due to complicated rules around eligibility for public benefit programs, limited access to health care, economic limitations, and a variety of other factors. At the state level, Oklahoma did comparatively little to support immigrants as well.
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While macroeconomic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (the size of an economy) and the unemployment rate (the percentage of people who want work but can’t find it) are useful for measuring the overall health of an economy, they conceal inequalities and long-standing structural challenges that hurt many Oklahomans' ability to provide for themselves and participate in our economy.
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Allowing these workers the opportunity to receive the tax credit can put money back into our state and local economies. Our state should end state-level EITC exclusion for ITIN filers who pay their fair share in taxes and allow them to receive the tax credit they’ve earned.
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Oklahoma’s immigrants want their families to thrive, but frequently, unnecessary barriers keep them from being able to realize their full potential— both for themselves and their contributions to our communities.
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