OKPOLICY.ORG
During the last legislative session Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 4156 that gave state law enforcement officers the authority to arrest people who are found in Oklahoma without legal authority to be in the United States. The bill creates a new crime of “impermissible occupation” which is committed by a person who enters Oklahoma “willfully and without permission…without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.”
HB 4156 was authored by House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, and Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City. The bill was introduced on April 15, 2024, well after the bill introduction deadline. It was assigned direct to the floor calendar in both the House and Senate, bypassing the normal committee process. The bill passed the House 77-20 along partisan lines and the Senate 39-8, again on a strictly partisan vote on April 22, all within one week of being introduced.
Within weeks after the governor signed the bill, it began to draw fire from law enforcement. The Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police and metro law enforcement agencies released a joint statement saying that the immigration bill would deteriorate public trust in law enforcement and pose legal challenges in anti-racial profiling.
The statement went on to say law enforcement leaders from state organizations and municipalities weren’t substantially involved while HB 4156 went through the legislature. They wrote, “Further, HB 4156 brings forth legal challenges in fair and impartial policing and anti-racial profiling. These unintended consequences may deteriorate public trust in law enforcement in already vulnerable communities, ultimately resulting in increased public safety concerns.”
The law was scheduled to go into effect on July 1. However, in June a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction putting the controversial law on hold pending litigation testing its constitutionality.
But there is some remaining business related to the new immigration law. At the time the governor signed HB 4156, to his credit, he also issued an executive order creating the “Oklahoma State Work Permits and Visa Task Force” to try to take a more balanced approach to the immigration issue.
The Task Force was ordered to evaluate and make recommendations regarding policies and programs and proposed legislation that will allow for immigrants to pursue the American dream and contribute to our workforce, to secure work permits, work visas or similar documentation permitting them to remain for established timeframes without the threat of separation from their families and livelihood, and to provide organizations and industries the ability to hire and retain immigrants who do not present a threat to communities.
The Task Force, consisting of 11 members chaired by Secretary of Public Safety Tricia Everest, met six times and heard presentations from, among others, representatives from the City of Tulsa, the Utah Governor’s Office, and the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. The Task Force issued its report on August 28 with five recommendations:
- creating an Office of New Oklahomans to promote interagency coordination and collaboration on issues impacting non-citizens in state and federal government,
- empowering employers, internationally trained talent and migrant workers with the tools and information necessary to fill high-need sector jobs,
- promoting policies which optimize efficiency for international talent navigating credentialing processes,
- piloting innovative solutions to increase work permits and visas issued to non-citizens seeking to move and/or living in Oklahoma, and
- issuing Driving Privilege Cards to qualifying non-citizens to address public safety concerns.
The report has received mixed reviews from legislators. It will be interesting to see if the recommendations get any traction in the new legislative session.
