Immigration in Oklahoma and I.R.O.N. Website - Overview and Perspective

 

Oklahoma is undergoing a dramatic transformation in our culture keyed by a vast influx of foreign nationals, many but by no means all from Hispanics from south of the Rio Grande. A brief review any representative sample of the immense flood of news articles and reports on immigration, a small portion of which we are able to keep on this site, should establish this beyond the slightest doubt. Texas has been gradually transformed over the last few decades from a state where Hispanics numbered only a few tens of thousands to a state where Hispanics are almost now, and in a few years will be by a commanding margin, the largest ethno-cultural grouping in the state. Oklahoma is presently well along on the same path, with by most projections only a couple of decades separating us. What is by far the most immense cultural transformation in our states history however is curiously being treated by most of the opinion leaders and managers in our state, including the press, higher education, and other prominent cultural and civic leaders seemingly with no objections. It is view as being, whatever ones private concerns and thoughts are on the matter, as being purely a fait accompli, to which one can do nothing but try to adapt oneself and Oklahoma to.

The reasons for this civic resignation on immigration are involved and complex, and can be reviewed in more depth by reviewing any one of the large numbers of excellent websites which have been established, us number of which we have included on our links page. Fundamentally though these arguments break down into four  basic categories. 

• The first argument is that the tide of immigration is irresistible: There is nothing really as nation we can do to keep people who wish to come to this country from doing so, even if we were determined and made an all out effort to do so. If we pick people up and bus them across the border, they’ll just be back in a week. Or at least there is nothing we can do that is consistent and compatible with our legal framework and nature as a free country and democracy.

There is also a corollary of this claim at we hear among state leaders, particularly among public officials. This claim is at the state level there is nothing we can do about immigration here in Oklahoma. Regulation of immigration is a federal matter, and enforcement of our federal immigration laws is a matter for the federal authorities, in particular the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) or more accurately its successor, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of the Department of Homeland Security. There is nothing we can do so at the state level, so if you feel deeply about the matter, contact your congressional representatives or otherwise work for a change in policy at the federal level. There is nothing really we can do at the state level

A brief review of this argument as supported by the material on this site demonstrates the fallacy of this claim. There are a great many of potentially very effective enforcement methods on the books or otherwise available to authorities that if implemented could make a truly dramatic impact on the immigration figures for this country. And many of these enforcement methods are available to state law enforcement authorities and other cognizant state government. In fact in many of these case the federal government is actively seeking the aid of state authorities if they are willing. Sometimes in fact state authorities are actually violating federal policy and law by various state policies and directives. Granting in-state tuition breaks to illegal foreign nationals (or illegal aliens)while denying them to out-of-state American citizens is a violation of federal law, as is not reporting illegal aliens who apply through state agencies for federal benefits of various sorts.

So to say there is nothing we can do as a nation, or even as a state is absolutely false. There are an enormous number of things that could be done – many of these by your local authorities like your police department, DHS office, or even hospital admissions department. Often these courses of action are not widely publicized or generally used, but they are available, and could easily be implemented, if the perception and public will existed for their implementation. Briefly, to summarize, the immigration problem one of enforcement practicability, it is one of civic responsibility and political will, to compel the enforcement of statues which are already on the books and could if used make a dramatic improvement in the situation, but for now for assorted and sundry reasons are being ignored.

The Oklahoma Legal Issues section addresses these and other legal issues on immigration.

• The second arguments is that current immigration is beneficial for us economically: So this argument goes - it is necessary for our economy and businesses, providing the workforce to “do the jobs that Americans won’t do” in Bush’s words.

The frequency with which arguments like these are often invoked firstly tend to cast doubt motives behind those invoking the first argument. When one is convinced something for which there is opposition to is doing good, one often is able to find reasons why the efforts in opposition are inevitably bound to fail, and otherwise exhibit a lack of enthusiasm for finding solutions to the putative problem. One of if not perhaps the most important reason unregulated and other immigration persists, especially in this part of the country, is that a significant and politically influential portion of employers and our business community find it financially beneficial. The use of low-wage labor in industries like the meat-packing industry has undoubtedly resulted in substantial cost savings and increased profits for such industries.

 Whether such localized savings and increased profits by such businesses result in even economic benefits for the rest of us, let alone an improved overall quality of life, is however largely conjecture. Projected over many years such a dramatic transformation of the low-end of our economy through use of vast army of low-wage foreign nationals clearly may results in many unforeseen quite possibly negative consequences for our economy and our existing workforce, even separate and apart from the social, cultural, and political aspects which such an influx implies for our country and our society as a whole. Are foreign nationals really needed to “do the jobs Americans won’t do”, or do they merely allow employees to undercut the wages and working conditions of the American working or who would be working at these positions? Unions have historically almost always argued so. Not surprisingly with the amount of money at stake, certain pro-immigration sectors of the businesses community have conducted a public relations program arguing this sector of the employment force is badly needed and warning against cutbacks. In spite of this support and the Bush administrations pro-immigration views however, there is a fairly strong body of official evidence, including the governments own studies, that point to the conclusion quite the opposite. The harm that immigration is doing to the wages, working conditions, employment prospects, and the lifestyle dependent on these is discussed in the Employment/Job Issues section of this site. 

• There is another flavor to the “we need immigration” buffet: In addition to those that argue that whatever impacts to our countries social fabric are outweighed by the supposed economic benefits to employers they bring, there is a minority that for ideological reasons sometimes explicitly but more often expressed in a veiled form through one of the other arguments, that mass immigration into this country of one sort or another is in itself a positive virtue and should not be stopped, whatever the consequences to our nations social and cultural fabric appear to be. These range in view from putative right to the left.

On the left of course we have a strain of thought that views the existence of the United States itself as an act of imperialist aggression against the third world, to which we all owe the right to settle in the United States as compensation. A flavor of this, with emphasis on Mexico in particular, is that of groups like La Raza (literally “the race”) and MEChA. These groups in general unabashedly hate the American citizens and the United States, and many in them appear to harbor pro-communist and anti-Semitic views as well. Such groups views in general are not only far removed from the viewpoints of most Oklahoman’s, they are generally unrepresentative of most Hispanics, especially in this part of the country as well, although there are exceptions. Accordingly it is probably unproductive to dwell too long on these groups and their inflammatory and often frankly racist rhetoric, for now, although there is good reason to believe these sentiments do exist in some within the Hispanic community and will be espoused in a more open form as Hispanic power increases, just as they have in other areas such as California, Arizona, and parts of Texas.

On the right we have the Wall Street Journal type of open borders libertarian/neo-conservatives who feel all borders in the world should be abolished to the flow of goods and services and that removing immigration control to people seeking work in a country other than their origin, or employers seeking laborers from a country other than their own, is one aspect of this. President Bush’s recent statement in his “guest worker program (aka amnesty) proposal that his goal was to match “any willing employer with any willing employee” (in the world!) was one expression of this. The “There Shall Be Open Borders” editorial that the WSJ ran annually for several years and WSJ editor Roger Bartley’s statement that “the nation-state is finished” are other manifestations of this. The driving principle her is that the only principle in immigration policy should be corporate profit and greed, and that any other considerations, including the existence of entire nations, is secondary if not inconsequential. As most Oklahoman’s are far away from to the extreme radicalism of groups like La Raza and MEchA, so they are not overly attracted to the extreme reactionary thinking of groups like the Wall Street Journal’s editors and management. Advocates for such views in general do not ostentatiously express such sentiments in general such as the WSJ or even Bush does, although one suspects from the behavior of many pro-immigration groups like the Oklahoma Chamber of commerce that such views influence the thinking of some.

• The system cannot be changed argument: Even if the essentially unrestricted immigration into our country could be stopped, and doing so would mean not economic harm but in fact economic good to the great majority of people in our country and in Oklahoma in particular, many people still feel resigned to the situation. One doesn’t know who to talk to who can make a difference, or feels even if one does speak out, that just one person will not make a difference.  

Certainly not all efforts at influencing our civic or political landscape are immediately successful, and one should not enter this arena thinking so. But the fact of the matter is it is surprising how much influence even just one voice can have, especially if that voice is educated on the issue, articulate, and not hectoring but gently persuasive. Voices acting in concert, such as through IRON or other effective citizens organization, can do immeasurably more, even if our numbers will probably always be small compared with those numbers of Oklahomans and Americans whose lives we influence for the better. The great anthropologist Margaret Mead once said that “it is a mistake to think that a small group of dedicated people cannot change things. In fact that is the only way things have ever been changed”. Avenues for involvement are listed in the Activism section of this website. Just a brief perusal will identify many avenues in which an ordinary citizen can participate and potentially make a great deal of difference.

The transformation of Oklahoma from the place we all know and love to a place many of us would scarcely recognize, much less feel at home in, is already well under way. But it is by no means inevitable. Powerful forces certainly have established themselves, some ostentatiously and some more quietly, with a vested interest in effecting the changes underway now and making them irreversible. But there are also powerful means of resistance available, if we avail ourselves of them. Presently the actions taken both by officials and just concerned citizens and groups, which IRON is proud to have been a art of already have had a significant positive impact reversing what many feel is the inevitable tide of unrestricted immigration upon our state. With more involvement the impact could be much greater.

 

The actions and decisions taken in the next few years, including many being considered in the near future, some right now, will play a key role in which path our state takes. We hope you will join us in this effort to preserve an Oklahoma for our children much like that which we have known.